The men’s “B” standard to qualify for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials is 2:22 and the “A” is 2:20. The current American marathon record is 2:05 and change (Khalid Khannouchi). Given that, the spread between the B standard and the record is 17 minutes (B standard is 14% more than record), and 15 minutes between the A and the record (A standard is 12% more).
For U.S. women, the “B” standard is 2:47 and the “A” is 2:39. The marathon record for U.S. women is 2:21:xx (Deena Kastor). That makes the spread between the B standard and the record 26 minutes (B standard is 18% more than record), and 18 minutes between the A and the record (A 13% more).
On paper, it seems that the women’s standard is much more lenient. Does anyone know why (i.e. to increase field size because there are fewer women participating)? I’m not trying to start a men versus women debate, just curious.
Because our marathoners suck? It is all about depth of field which we don’t have much of anymore. Not sure as to why the male feamale difference, but if we held all our marathoners to the A standard it would look like a club race. My new goal is to beat the Japanese guy in the 100 meters and go for the world record in the 95-100 age group. If I start today I only have 45 years to get in shape.
Probably a field size issue. The time standard for the first women’s olympic trials in 1984 was 2:52 or 2:53, based on the 100th best time in the US in 1982. I don’t know the basis for subsequent adjustments (2:50, then 2:48, now 2:47).
I think what they are trying to do is to get as many people men and women to qualify for the trials, but still not be running that “slow” - hence the broad range. However, you slice or dice the times, The fact of the matter is there are way fewer men running less than 2:20 - 2:22 these days than a number of years ago. Go just slightly slower (2:25 - 2:40) than this and you enter a true no-mans land for marathon running these days. I have stood at the finish to both the Chicago and the NYC marathons and this is what you see: The top runners all come in under 2:15 then it starts to slow down for a bit then after about 2:30 hardly anyone is coming in at all. Then around 3:00 hours the flood gates open and it stays that way for the next three hours.
Women - it’s a more difficult situation to analyse, due to the fact they have less history than men in the sport.
I would bet that it’s a pure numbers game. They want to get the right number of runners to qualify for the trials and these are the standards that are going to get them the numbers. I think it’s likely “easier” for women to qualify in many things such as this due to lack of women participating in sports in general (compared to men). I don’t have a problem with it for something like Olympic trials since you don’t want to have a race like that with only 3 runners.
I don’t know what the reasoning is but it’s probably a mix of field size and relative field strength for the men and women. The ITU rankings rules are based on a similar difference for the respective genders. The points cut-off for the men is within 5% of the winners time whereas the women get an 8% cushion. Again, I’m not sure what the basis is for that, but it’s just another data point. Fleck has some pretty good points in his post.
I think that the time standards are set solely with the goal of creating a trials with a certain number of participants. The same thing with the time standards for qualifying for the Boston Marathon or other races, where using the same percentage differences from world or American records would result in much different ratio of men and women in the race. The fact that you need different percentages to create a similar field is probably because fewer women as a portion of the population compete in athletics.
I saw the same thing as an AG swimmer where a 16 year old boy that was X% slower than the tenth fastest 16 year old boy might struggle to make Junior Nationals while a 16 year old girl that was X% slower than the tenth fastest 16 year old girl would have a shot at making the cut for Senior Nationals.
The interesting thing is that Khalid Khannouchi only became a citizen about 3-4 years ago (if that). I’d be curious to see what the American-born record is–if you go by that, then the 14% might come down to 10-12%. Just an observation folks–not trying to say Khalid Khannouchi is any less of a citizen than you or I. I agree with what the others said as far as getting people to qualify. My best guess is that those qualifying times might also have some correlation to the olympic qualifying times–i think the men’s just got dropped to 2:12 or 2:14. maybe you should look at the olympic qualifying times and compare those our national qualifying times and see if those percentages are way off too.
once again, i only brought up the american-born thing as an observation. with all the “pre” hype going on, i’ve been reading a lot how american distance running has not, until recently, been what it used to be.
Hello, I’m almost positive that the standards are based on the previous year and are cut off at the 100th best american time. (not sure if its the 100th or some other number but you get the idea.) They want a reasonable size field but not too big.
Bob Kempanien holds the “American” American record of 2:08. Given that, the spread drops to 14 minutes and 12 minutes respectively (11% and 9% from the record).
The women’s standard is easier because there are fewer competitive female athletes. Why?
The olympics have been late to adopt womens distance…
Longest womens running event until 1972 was the 800m (1500 introduced that year)
3000m came in 1984, along with the marathon. 10000m appeared in 1988, and then the 5000 replaced the 3000 in 1996. Women’s steeplechase will make its debut in 2008. Better late than never.
Bob Kempanien holds the “American” American record of 2:08. Given that, the spread drops to 14 minutes and 12 minutes respectively (11% and 9% from the record).
Kempainen’s time is not eligible for “American record” status because he ran it at Boston. Boston and New York are point-to-point courses and times recorded in these events may not be used to gain a US record. Outside Khannouchi, the fastest US time eligible for the record belongs to David Morris (2:09:xx).