No one does Olympic qualification like the Americans. It’s all noisy hype and swashbuckling action, as much about the race as it is the end result. And when it’s over there are no excuses, no regrets, and no complaints.
Because, as Baron de Courbertin might say, the most important thing about their Olympic qualification is not the winning or the taking part but finishing in the top three. Later today, starting outside the Los Angeles Convention Centre, a field of around 375 runners will compete in the US Olympic marathon trial, the first three men and women finishers all guaranteed selection for Rio this summer: no arguments, no objections, and no exceptions.
They’ll run an initial 2.2-mile loop through downtown LA, then complete four six-mile loops, out around the LA Coliseum, before finishing back at the Convention Centre. The entire event is going out live on NBC, and as well as Olympic qualification there is a $600,000 prize purse, distributed among the top-10 men and women. It’s going to be a pure long distance running contest with four years of training and dreaming on the line.
Drop out
There are some pre-race favourites, including Galen Rupp, training partner of Mo Farah, who is making his marathon debut, and also Meb Keflezighi, winner of their 2012 marathon trail, looking to make his fourth Olympics, at age 40.
There will probably be some mid-race surprises too, some drop outs, or some complete outsider nailing one of their Olympic qualification places. The victorious six men and women can briefly celebrate and then concentrate on six full months of properly thorough preparation for Rio, without having to worry about the blazers and boardroom machinations.
Then, from July 1st-10th, it’s the turn of their track and field athletes. Since 1972 the US Olympic Trials have adopted this top-three or nothing qualification policy, and while it does make for some cruel and unusual results, again it beats the blazers and boardroom. The 2016 edition are headed back to Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon – better known as Tracktown USA – and along with guaranteed Rio selection for the first three men and women in each event these trials come with the guarantee of some tribulations.
Like in 1992, when Carl Lewis, then reigning Olympic champion and world record holder, finished sixth in the 100m, thus missing his preferred event in Barcelona that summer; or also in 1992, when World decathlon champion Dan O’Brien, marketed as the “world’s greatest athlete”, failed to clear a height in the pole vault, and so watched those Barcelona Olympics from his bed back in Idaho.
Back here, meanwhile, our Olympic qualification continues in muted undertones, particularly when it comes to the marathon. We now have eight men and four women inside the necessary standard for Rio, with the possibility of a few more. (Martin Fagan had also qualified for Rio, before retiring last June; Maria McCambridge is still hopeful of joining our list of women qualifiers.) Athletics Ireland has set May 23rd as their deadline for marathon qualification, leaving those selected (maximum of three men and three women) with just two and a half months of proper preparation for Rio.
According to their 12-page selection policy document, Athletics Ireland will be considering a number of variables when deciding who gets to compete in Rio, including where exactly the qualifying time was run, giving “consideration for the course speed rating (average race time bias) of athletes with comparable achieved entry standards that are within (one minute +/? .7 per cent) of each other”.
To help make some sense of this I rang Jerry Kiernan, who finished ninth in the 1984 Olympic marathon in LA. Kiernan has a vested interest here given he coaches Sergiu Ciobanu, one of our eight men currently qualified for Rio, although he’s not worried about which three men and women get to compete in Rio as long as they’re the best three.
“Well the selectors made a total balls of it last time round and there’s nothing to suggest they won’t do it again,” said Kernan. “Maria McCambridge should have been selected for London, but she wasn’t. There is possibly some logic to it this time, in an illogical way, but it’s certainly a very ill-thought process.”
Kiernan points to the apparent lack of any marathon experience among the blazers and boardroom who will select the team for Rio: “I’m not asking to be on it. Maybe someone like Dick Hooper. When the dust settles in April, it should be easy enough to identify the three best performers. . . I would trust them to get most of them right, but there’s been very laissez-faire attitude towards the thing.”
Worse still several of those qualified are running another marathon to better their chances of selection: Mick Clohisey, currently our second-fastest qualifier with his 2:15:35, feels he needs to better his time again and is running Seville later this month; Paul Pollock, currently fourth fastest, is running the London Marathon in April. By the time Athletics Ireland makes their selection, at the end of May, some of those destined for Rio may have run their best race just to get there, or at least in worryingly close proximity. Some sort of Irish Olympic marathon trail would have lessened that risk, or at least ensured those not selected can have no excuses.
