What will be interesting is, yes the US needs both of them seemingly. But the US needs both of them to be optimal at ITU and more directly the MTR…..so a schedule to put themselves in the best position for that will be very interesting to see how either or both handle that. US needs medals, as there likely is no chance of indvidual medal worthy performances in LA.
It may play out siniliar to what happened w Ben Kanute. He was a near lock for MTR Tokyo in ‘17-‘19 time frame until it was clear he had lost his top MTR ability and other men had closed the gap, so you could pick atleast 2 other men in place of Kanute by the time Olympics occurred. Kanute raced middle distance and MTR only in that time period and was showing signs of “non specialization” impacting his ability. In the Women’s case I don’t think anyone has closed the gap *yet, even though it’ll both knibb and Spivey’s top end MTR ability is likely past their prime at this point.
The US women I think are sorta at a major crossroads of where/who the next generation of talent is going to be.