Update: USATF WILL honor the order of finish at Trials for those who have broken 2:11:30

"Not clear" to half wits like you and Rojo.

Is the 2:11:30 bare minimum a USATF or WA standard? Kind of funky having a majority of the field racing knowing they have no chance at making the team.

And lol at Rojo thinking he’s Woodward and Bernstein with his slapdick reporting.

Rojo,

This is why LR is a clown show in the sport. The get it first..even if we have to make it up...mentality. Ironically because you repeated done this same thing - wrote an "article" that was based on your misinterpretation of the rule - you have lost the benefit of the doubt.

I saw your post and know that you guys probably didn't read the rules or even understand them.

Lastly, the fact that USATF is revising the document is not "proof" you were right.. It actually proves that they have to account for and correct your blatant disinformation. Unfortunately, you site does have some reach so they have to account for the people will just read your opinion pieces as news.

Also, I doubt you give one cr@p about the little guy runner

wait until this dude discovers Citius Mag...

I really don't think people understand the impact of weather on this whole scenario. It's not just how heat, sun and humidity impact the marathon itself, but how it impacts individuals differently regardless of talent level. Just look at the World Championships and Olympics which are always run in similar conditions. That's the problem with qualifying times in marathons, those performances are done under perfect conditions and fast courses which are opposite of most championship marathon situations.

Due to the nature of the race there could be any number of possibilities with the finishing order. People can guess and speculate all day, but it's the marathon and it's going to be contested under challenging conditions.

For example when you look through the top 20-25 US men's times on the performance list the only guy who has run a good one under similar conditions was Zach Panning at the World Championships in 13th in 2:11:21. Everyone else ran their times in fast races / conditions.

It is possible in this kind of race that guys who have not run under 2:11:30 to this point end up in the top three by the finish. Take a look at the top 10 from the 2016 Trials in LA. It was a warm day in March. This is the reality of the situation.

2016 US Olympic Trials Marathon - LA

169 starters, 105 finishers, 64 DNF's

1) 2:11:12 Rupp (got 3rd at the Olympics)

2) 2:12:20 Meb

3) 2:13:00 Ward (got 6th at the Olympics)

4) 2:14:12 Puskedra

5) 2:14:57 Pennel

6) 2:15:16 Liano

7) 2:15:23 Biwott

8) 2:15:26 Smyth

9) 2:15:52 Quigley

10) 2:16:25 Arciniaga

Yes but what about the super shoes? Here is the deal. IF you are good enough to be an Olympic caliber marathoner, in today’s shoes you should be able to run a 2:11 marathon as an incredibly hard workout on a fast course somewhere BEFORE the Trials. I would do that if I were so concerned about it. This issue is more about the US being weak in the marathon. Can you imagine Ethiopians and Kenyan men worrying about 2:11? Their women would laugh at them.

He doesn't. Rojo cares about himself and noone else

Slightly warmer in Budapest than LA.

Zach Panning 12th 2:11:23

I doubt the people criticizing letsrun actually sat down with the rules document and tried to understand it. I am not saying rojo handled this perfectly but I don’t think he did anything wrong in this case. People seem to assume the rules meant what they wanted them to mean. That’s not how running a legit sports governing body is supposed to work.

^This. He knew what the qualifying time was, when the qualifying window was, and that Boston was not record eligible. So whose fault is it that he does not have the qualifying time?

I also think it is absurd to say the third spot exists because of him. If he were lower in the ranking, another American would be ranked high enough to unlock the third spot.

Prompting action is great, and a super important role in journalism. Kudos for that.

But good journalism also involves distilling incredibly complex subject matter -- and there are far more complex matters being written about than USATF rules -- in an understandable way. You haven't done that.

A master's in journalism is meaningless and doesn't make one "old school." That said, you should have let Gault report and write all of this if you wanted it to be comprehensible.

I'm sure there are lots of journalists besides me who are regulars on this site. You should get us on an advisory board to help oversee this stuff.

They’re the journalists and they wrote the article.

If the New York Times makes a series of egregious mistakes in an article, is your first response “have any of YOU tried to write an article on this subject?”

Japanese standard is sub 206??? Olympic standard is 208? Yet USA Track and Field are setting the bar at 2:11:30. Even Sesame Street aficionados can figure this one out.

This. Go look at the USATF website and read where it says this:

• 2024 Olympic Games Men's and Women's Marathon Athlete Selection Procedures - REVISIONS PENDING

There's a good reason they took the document down for rewriting. It completely contradicts what USATF is saying the procedure is. If Rojo or someone else hadn't pointed this out there would have been mayhem after the Trials.

2:11;30 is the World Athletics Standard it has nothing to do with USATF.

This is so so wrong.

Can you imagine if the NCAA put out a document in the middle of the season about who would make the NCAA football playoff that was so poorly worded that it didn't say what it intended to say. No one with half a brain would rip ESPN for reporting on the snafu.

We understood the rules. We understood what was written. USATF did not.

They aren't corecting our blatant disinformation, they are correcting their poorly worded document.

No we could have written our initial article with a slightly different tone. I assume this would make you happy?

Title: "USATF has published its Olympic Marathon selection rules which states they won't honor the order of selection, but they are so incompetent that we assume that's not what they meant"

Body: "If USATF honestly follows the rules it published, then they won't honor order of finish for the third spot. But remember this isn't exactly an organization known for its brilliance or transparency so we assume that's not what they meant. And these rules could change at any time and may be totally ignored unless someone sues them -so we'll get back to you if they ever get back to us."

No, you really did not

but for G**'s sake how is it possible that the USA only has 2 athletes with the standard, the same as the Netherlands (18 mill people, size of NYC) and less than Belgium or not even close to Japan, Kenya, Eritrea or Ethiopia in terms of athletes with the standard???

The 2:08:10 standard is known for some time and still the USA are back in the Sydney Olympics era, even with supershoes.

In case someone runs sub 2:11:30 at the trials.