LetsRun carries extensive coverage of women’s and men’s marathons and running events and has enthusiasm for, and celebrates the successes of, both genders. Partly because of this, I recently started to suspect that American women may be better poised for near-term success on the world distance running stage than the men. This was reaffirmed by looking at a couple of items.
Earlier this year, the IAAF announced significantly more difficult qualifying standards for the 2020 Olympics. For example, the men’s marathon qualifying time dropped from 2:18 to 2:11:30. In the United States, the Olympic trials for middle and long distance runners takes every American athlete who has made the qualifying standard, puts them on the same track, and the top three finishers in each event advance to the Olympic games. For the 2020 trials, it appears they will keep the former time standards in place for allowing athletes to make the trials but the top three finishers, if they don’t have the new Olympic standard, won’t necessarily make the Olympic team.
LetsRun created a chart to show which of the top three finishers at the 2016 U.S. Olympic trials also met the 2020 standard. In other words, how would the Olympic team that year have looked if they had had to meet the 2020 standard? This chart included the 800M, 1500M, 3000M Steeplechase, 5000M, 10000M, and marathon. Since this is an argument for the distance runners, I’ll use just the 5000M, 10000M, and marathon results. On the women’s side, in two out of these three events the top three women finishers also met the new qualifying criteria. Not only did they have enough athletes with the new standard, but those athletes showed up and performed when it was necessary to do so. On the men’s side? Out of those three events, there were zero where all of the top three finishers also met the new standard. This wasn’t an issue of depth, for there were enough men in most of the events who had met the new standard but just didn’t finish in the top three that day. Credit the U.S. women for performing well when called upon. (If you’re curious, the results were similar for the 800M, 1500M, and 3000M steeplechase. The women would have gone three for three and the men were at zero.)
Given the dizzying array of data available for track races, I chose the marathon as the next comparison point. Taking the results from the six major marathons (Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, New York, and Tokyo) from 2017 forward, American women have had a total of eight podium (or top three) finishes, and American men have had three. Among the men, it was two athletes who combined for the three finishes and for the women, it was a total of five unique athletes who earned the eight podium places.
American distance running is not in a position to start dominating any one event. None of those marathon podium finishes for the women or men came at Berlin or London, currently the two fastest marathons. But, Shalane Flanagan won the 2017 New York marathon and second place was Mary Keitany, the current women’s-only world record holder and at the time, considered the best female marathon runner on the planet. While she was dealing with a mild medical issue that day, one person pointed out that with how Flanagan ran the race, she would probably have won regardless. She followed up her 2017 win with a third place showing at the 2018 event, behind Keitany and Vivian Cheruiyot, the 2018 London marathon winner. Not a bad day out.
There are several American women who are showing significant potential including Jordan Hasay, Molly Huddle, and Emily Sisson. All have run well at major races. While Flanagan and Desiree Linden, the 2018 Boston Marathon champion, may be retiring sooner rather than later, there are technically five American women out there who can legitimately compete at the world level. It’s hard to say whether they’ll be able to challenge at Berlin or London but at the other four majors, they may be in a position to continue to make big statements.
American men do have some runners who may be able to contend at the world level and it may be that both genders will put on a strong showing over the next couple of years and at the 2020 Tokyo games. But for the moment, it appears that the best odds for American distance running success will be from the women’s side.
Running food review of the week: (note–gels, bars, chews, and other items affect everyone differently. Try them on a short run before using them for a key training run or race): Clif Bloks Spearmint: These are a new flavor in this line and taste like a chewy breath mint. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a breath mint right before running so it was a new sensation. GI-wise, they were good. Energy wise, they were fine. I used this on a day when I was rested and felt pretty average, so I don’t think they gave me a significant boost.
Sources used:
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/11/shalane-flanagan-wins-2017-new-york-city-marathon-1st-american-winner-40-years/
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/03/ethiopians-birhanu-legese-20448-and-ruti-aga-22040-ignore-poor-weather-and-win-first-marathons-of-their-careers-in-tokyo/
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/03/our-worst-fears-realized-usatf-will-not-honor-top-three-finish-at-the-us-olympic-trials-unless-you-have-the-standard/
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/04/2019-boston-marathon-tracking-live-leaderboard-and-results/
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/04/2019-london-marathon-results-tracking-and-live-leaderboard/
https://www.marathon.tokyo/en/about/past/2017/press-release/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Berlin_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Berlin_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Boston_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Boston_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Chicago_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Chicago_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_London_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_London_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_New_York_City_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_New_York_City_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Tokyo_Marathon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jepkosgei_Keitany
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