Is Jared Ward a lock for the US Olympic Team in Rio?

Ward actually said that he had stomach trouble and struggled with energy levels the last few miles because he could take in much in fluids for most of the race. Ward was smart to run a hilly fall marathon instead of a flat race. That will be a big advantage in Atlanta over everyone who ran the flat races this fall and last spring.

I am not sure Ward is a lock. There are a lot of runners who are coming into form and could have a breakthrough in February. It is not unusual to see guys drop a minute or two off their PRs at the trials as the go all in against a very big field of talented runners. Ward is just a minute or two ahead of that field at this point. So, a bad day for Ward could easily end up putting him somewhere in the 5-10th range. But the best argument for Ward is that he is incredibly consistent and executes his race as well as anyone. There have been a very large number of US marathoners who have put together a good race in the 2:10-12 range only to completely fail to ever run below 2:15 again.

He's definitely a lock for the Rio team since he made it almost 4 years ago.

Ward, Fauble, Korir. There’s your team.

Men's team:

1. Korir

2. Rupp -- falls back of Korir at 18 and gets close to a fading Korir by 25 / 26, but can't quite close

3. Ward

4. Fauble

5. Abdi

6. Parker Stinson

7. Jerrell Mock

8. Bumby

9. Jim Walmsley

10. Matt Llano

Women's team:

1. Emily Sisson

2. Desi Lindon

3. Jordan Hasay (would easily be #1 without the Chicago disaster)

4. Sara Hall

5. Aliphine Tuliamuk

6. Amy Cragg (injury / lack of fitness)

7. Molly Huddle

8. Kellyn Taylor

9. Emma Bates

10. Taylor Ward

I was all in with this until you put Walmsley at #9. He barely ran the 64 flat qualifier on a flat half course at Houston. Ya'll say he barely trained for it, but he dedicated a couple months of doing faster workouts and already had the huge base from ultra's. He's not going to suddenly beat the 40 guys ahead of him from the half marathon from the past couple years just because we're now running a full marathon. Maybe he'll be 20th, that'd be a great showing, but he's not going to be 9th place. Come on, man.

Almost had me wrote:

I was all in with this until you put Walmsley at #9. He barely ran the 64 flat qualifier on a flat half course at Houston. Ya'll say he barely trained for it, but he dedicated a couple months of doing faster workouts and already had the huge base from ultra's. He's not going to suddenly beat the 40 guys ahead of him from the half marathon from the past couple years just because we're now running a full marathon. Maybe he'll be 20th, that'd be a great showing, but he's not going to be 9th place. Come on, man.

Lol, you’d be a fool to think walmsley won’t have a MASSIVE upside in the full marathon versus his half. 13.1 is an entirely lactate-threshold based race. The full is all about time on feet + fitness. And walmsley has more strength over extreme long distance than anyone else in the field. What he lacks in speed he makes up for, handily, in strength.

I personally might even put him better than 9th. He’s training with a vengeance and won’t be DNF’ing in garbage conditions, as his mental game is far superior to those with mainly road and track experience.

Just my $0.03

There are still 4 months of training and unknown weather conditions. Nobody is a lock.

YES.

THE POWER OF PRAYER.

M.A.G.A.

lock it wrote:

More of a lock than Fauble??

You kidding me? He hasn't been really running for some weeks now. Ward has been (major) injury-free for years.

Logic? wrote:

Lol, you’d be a fool to think walmsley won’t have a MASSIVE upside in the full marathon versus his half. 13.1 is an entirely lactate-threshold based race. The full is all about time on feet + fitness. And walmsley has more strength over extreme long distance than anyone else in the field. What he lacks in speed he makes up for, handily, in strength.

I personally might even put him better than 9th. He’s training with a vengeance and won’t be DNF’ing in garbage conditions, as his mental game is far superior to those with mainly road and track experience.

Just my $0.03

Mentioning speed and lactate-threshold when discussing marathons and half marathons is like saying Bolt was great at the 100m because he had superior aerobic capacity.

Try again pal.

First off, I didn’t mention speed or lactate threshold in relation to the full marathon.

I DID mention lactate threshold regarding the half marathon, because the race is basically A TEST OF YOUR LACTATE THRESHOLD, considering they’re running it in an hour.

Educate yourself, lad.

No one is a lock, you idiots.

Creaky Bones wrote:

I think Lagat is gonna make it.

I'll go with Rupp, Ward, and Lagat.

I want Stinson, Fauble & Korir

Rupp, Derrick, Ritz

No Kenyan transplants, please

Rupp is probably dealing with psychological issues with this Salazar ban (I am being serious) to a point it wouldn't surprise me he calls it a day and retires. He is weak of character, lacks self-identity.

I certainly don't have Korir on my list. A doper that goes to Kenya to train and evade testing stealing prize money from real Americans is not someone I want to root for.

Is Jared Ward a lock for the US Olympic Team in Rio? Yes, 100%.

Serious answer: you probably meant Tokyo. And no. The marathon is unpredictable. Anything can happen. He's a favorite, yes, but not a lock. The favorites are Fauble, Ward, Rupp (if healthy), and Leonard Korir. There are a lot of guys that could capitalize if 2 or more of the favorites have a bad day.

Oly Men's Marathon team will consist of:

Jared Ward, Parker Stinson, Andrew Bumbalough. In that finishing order at the Trials.

You hear it HERE first! -TN-runner, 11/4/2k19

Track Fan 1979 wrote:

He's definitely a lock for the Rio team since he made it almost 4 years ago.

This should have been the first response and EOT. Are people on LR really not aware that the Rio Olympics already happened?