Does it Matter, AT ALL, which athletes finish first

In terms of making the team it doesn't matter, but winning the trials is still a big deal in terms of $ and prestige.

May be the last ever marathon trials. Could be a historic race.

WHY?????? The Trials are THE BEST and FAIREST way to pick Your Team, The Best may not always make the Team, but they go by the Same rules, Top 3 are on the Olympic Team 4 is the first alternate. It is the closest to a True Meritocracy as it can be You have to Perform ON THAt DAY. True Meritocracy is The American Way and always has been and always will be hopefully.

I think Steve is trying to say that we might not even have a single person to hit the OLY time standard for 2028.

That's assuming of course there's enough runners who are under the World Athletics standard. At the rate WA is going, I can see a 2:07 (m)/2:24 (w) standard for '28, assuming they want the field at 80. Currently, it's fine for the women, but the men are dicey.

Then again, the argument FOR the Trials is that it's a money grab for USATF, as they can extort whatever city's crazy/dumb enough to bid for it to pay for the prize money, hotels for USATF execs and national sponsors, knowing that the LOC will never make their money back since the USOPC/USATF control all the marketing and TV rights, and the LOC can't sell major sponsorships to offset their costs that would risk stepping over the USOPC/USATF sponsors.

Prestige. You make me laugh. Probably about the 13th best thonning nation, these days

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Well there was prize money so I guess it's equally as good if you don't care about that

"Does it Matter, AT ALL, which athletes finish first"

Of course not. All that matters is that everyone had fun.

Ye$ it doe$ matter who place$ fir$t $second and all the way down to 10th.

You're right but for the wrong reason. All that matters is you accept and honor God.

Nah, by then, super shoes will have evolved into jet-powered roller skates and even hobby joggers will meet the standard.

Ask ASICS if they think finishing second to Nike, again, is a big deal. I guarantee you their marketing department is furious.

Prestige in the rest of the marathon running world? Yes, probably laughable or at least good for a wee chuckle? Prestige with US shoe companies and race directors both of which bring more lucrative deals? That's a whole different matter. Having said that, I don't know how much distinction there'll be in this case as they essentially finished together except that there is more money for first place.

I've never been completely sold on the idea that our trials system is the best way to pick an Olympic team. But I've never been completely sold on the idea that it's not. As it exists it probably is the best system for bringing exposure and TV revenue to USATF and that may make it the best system. Fairness is usually a subjective idea and I'll let it a lone.

I do think it's a good time to re-examine the way we do this which is not to say to change it. The current system has been in place for 56 years now so it might be a good idea to see how it's aged. If you look at before and after results of US marathoners at all of those Olympics the after results are much better, though there are lots of other changes in that time that may account for the improved performances.

But the business of how a country gets runners into the Olympics has changed a lot in recent years. When our current system was created a country could send three runners. That evolved into being able to send one runner who needed to meet a time standard and up to three if all of them met a faster standard. Now there's another layer of requirement. I kind of think that yesterday's results shows that our current system works as well as it ever did and I do think it will be retained. But I would not be stunned if it was revised.