Who wants to be an Olympian ? Public allowed to run the marathon in Paris 2024 !

The qualification times are key. Its not a "mass participation" race with joggers but one with qualification standards faster than any major US marathon. Its seeking those who have run major marathons well for their age and then some. Most people getting the BQ is a huge goal, for those who have obtained that goal keep pushing them 5-10 minutes further. Also give 4 years to qualify with your current age graded bracket.

I think I see the disconnect here. You think this is a great idea (which I, conceptually, don’t disagree with), so because I am saying it (operationally) doesn’t work, you think I’m saying it’s not a good concept (and thus don’t get it, because of course it is a good concept). Let’s recap why it wouldn’t work (operationally), regardless of how well-crafted the standards are:

This wouldn’t work on the same day as the Trials because, on a looped course with both men’s and women’s races running simultaneously, even several hundred very competitive AG runners would add an amount of road furniture to the course that we should be VERY uncomfortable with during the selection race for our Olympic Team. (Just 10 runners per 5-year AG would lead to 280 AG runners on the course, most of whom would be lapped by the leaders at least once, and many multiple times. And I was under the impression that standards that would allow substantially more than 10 runners per AG were being proposed, and agree that to be the best version of this AG Champs concept it would need to be many more than 10 qualifiers per AG.)

Doing it the day after the Trials would mean doing it instead of (or attached to) a mass participation race. If I’m the Houston or LA or Atlanta Marathon, I don’t want to cancel my mass participation race and have a one-off AG qualifiers-only race (as it will be way smaller than my usual race and make me way less money), so attached-to is the one of these options that makes sense. And if I’m doing it attached-to, the concept was running the same course as the Trials, which this AG Champs now wouldn’t do (as a multi-lap course wouldn’t work for a race with mass participation numbers, and no existing mass participation marathon would want to go away from their existing course and to a multi-loop course for a year anyway).

None of this is to say that there aren’t versions of the concept that could be interesting:

Having an “AG Champs Qualifiers” corral at the front of the mass participation race the day after the Trials would be cool (although, again, it would mean not running the Trials course).

Having USATF solicit bids for a marathon annually to be the AG National Championship (and have that AG Champs Qualifiers corral at the front and then crown AG national champions) would also be cool.

If someone created a Trials-like loop marathon for AGers, dubbed it the People’s Marathon National Championship, and created a really good, built-for-speed race where the top 1,000 or so AG runners (40 runners per AG would mean 1,120 runners) would all get the chance to compete for national titles that would be cool, too.

None of these options, though, turn into good AG runners getting to experience de facto running in the Trials. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t to say that some sort AG Marathon Champs isn’t a good idea, but rather let’s let the Trials keep being the Trials and not try to turn it into some sort of franken-race trying to be the pinnacle of domestic marathoning for all different types of runners.

Slow Bro wrote:

If this happens, I'd actually be interested.

It seems that it will.

More informations found in the French media :

- there will be a marathon the same day as the Olympic marathon, on the same course. The "public" marathon will start later (how much later doesn't seem decided yet)

- there will also be other distances (5k, 10k, half ? Not yet decided because it depends on the path of the marathon which is still unknown)

- it will probably be cheap as they want it "affordable for the most people"

- very likely no qualification time, and maybe not even timed as "it's not about performance but about incentive to make the country like sports more".

Agree but why then have a women's category at the trials if they are to be strictly elitist? Just make them the best of the best in an open category.