Week 1

Monday, September 17

Into the Spotlight

Olympic Trials race will take center stage in NYC

It promises to be the ultimate weekend in marathon running. The 38th ING New York City Marathon on Sunday, November 4, will culminate with a $1,000,000 prize, to be divided between the two inaugural World Marathon Majors series champions. And the day before, the city will also host the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon in Midtown Manhattan and Central Park. It is marathoning on a scale and scope befitting the great city of New York itself.

“Our sport has been growing in every way, building toward this pinnacle,” says Mary Wittenberg, president and CEO of New York Road Runners (NYRR), who brought the Trials to New York. “The Trials, the World Marathon Majors, and the New York City title, each means a lot. Wrapped into one, it’s going to be a blockbuster, a marathon extravaganza beyond anything our sport has seen before.”

After years of conducting its marathon trials in out-of-the-spotlight venues like Alamosa, Colorado (1968), Jersey City, New Jersey (1988) and Birmingham, Alabama (2004), USA Track & Field (USATF), the national governing body of running in the United States, made an effort to place both 2008 Trials races in major markets. That the men ended up in New York City during marathon weekend, and the women in Boston next April in conjunction with the 112th Boston Marathon, promises the kind of exposure the sport has long sought, but been denied.

“With the timing of all the athletes’ development, it’s all stacking up to do what we wanted,” says Jim Estes, senior manager for long distance running at USATF. “There’s a big story out there that’s compelling to a lot of people. New York is where so much of the media is being generated, and this is an opportunity to put some of the best runners in the world into a major spotlight.”

What makes the prospect of the Trials so compelling is the progress that U.S. distance runners have made in recent times. After the rise and indomitability of East African distance runners throughout the 1990s, and the concurrent loss of U.S. stature—we only sent one man and one woman to the 2000 Olympic Marathons in Sydney—American running was on life support. But with Deena Kastor’s Olympic marathon bronze medal and Meb Keflezighi’s silver in Athens in 2004, American expectations have shifted 180 degrees. Making the team heading to Beijing ’08 will require truly world-class performances. And what better place to stage the drama than in the media capital of the world?

“It’s why New York got the bid,” believes 1988 and '92 Olympic marathoner Ed Eyestone of Utah. “It’s about time they put the Trials front and center where it needs to be. And that’s acknowledging that the two teams I made were each shown on national television. But the fact is the Trials in New York is a big-ticket item.”

“When we ran in Eugene [Oregon] in 1976, it was like on a little country road,” remembers '76 Trials runner-up Bill Rodgers, four-time Boston and New York City Marathon champion. “There were no helicopters hovering overhead; it was like a race through the countryside. Even in Buffalo in 1984 it was relatively subdued. This year it will be much more intense and emotional.”

Before 1968, the U.S. chose its Olympic marathon teams via a points system based on performances at selected marathons, primarily the Boston and Yonkers Marathons. Through the ensuing 10 Olympic cycles, however, the team has been self-selected via a single Trials race. The top three finishers each earn a berth, given that they meet the Olympic qualifying time standards. Through those years, the marathon Trials have ended up in the cities willing to raise the necessary funds to host the event, regardless of whether the venue offered the best opportunities to select and promote the Olympic team.

At the 2000 Olympic Trials Marathon in Pittsburgh, a combination of hot, humid weather and a difficult course left the Americans without a qualifier. Only because each nation was allowed a single entrant did Wisconsin’s Rod DeHaven go to Sydney as the Olympic Trials champion.

With the 2008 Olympic Trials scheduled the day before the ING New York City Marathon, the city will be awash in marathon runners and enthusiasts from around the world. The media attention will be greater than ever, as will the pressure on the approximately 150 Trials qualifiers.

“The beauty of the Olympic Trials is [that it selects runners] who can peak at precisely the right time,” says Frank Shorter, America’s ultimate peaker as the gold and silver medalist from the 1972 and '76 Games. “It’s a difficult thing to do to be ‘on’ at a particular time. And always in the back of your mind is that you have to recover for the Olympics themselves.”

This year, for the first time since the single-race format began, the men’s marathon Trials will be conducted in the fall before the Olympic year, rather than within that year itself. The theory is that this schedule will allow athletes a complete rest followed by a full buildup. It also may well lure some of America’s top 5000-meter and 10,000-meter runners, who can afford to take a shot at the marathon Trials and still have plenty of time to recover and prepare for the track Trials next June in Eugene, Oregon.

Not everyone, however, sees an advantage in the long wait. “It makes perfect sense to run the Trials in the fall,” admits 1976 Olympic marathoner Don Kardong. “But I may make the case that having the Trials closer to the Games chooses people who are rounding into shape, and keeps you at your peak. You don’t have to recover and then re-peak, which is always difficult. Plus, it kept us from overtraining, too, which is a risk.”

Kardong acknowledges that with such a small sample for comparison, his theory lacks depth, but the facts do make for interesting conjecture.

“In 1972 we had the worst selection process ever,” Kardong states. “They ran the marathon Trials at the end of the track Trials in Eugene, with only two months to recover before Munich. In '76 we had an additional week. Yet in those two Olympics, we went first, fourth, ninth in '72, then second, fourth, and a hurt Bill Rodgers in 40th in Montreal. So, when we had the least amount of rest we did the best in the Olympic Games.”

Regardless of the timing, whoever makes the 2008 Olympic Marathon team will take all the momentum of 2004 with them to Beijing. Add the energy generated this summer by Alan Webb breaking Steve Scott’s quarter-century-old American record in the mile, and the success of the American distance runners at the recent IAAF World Track and Field Championships in Osaka, Japan in August—bronze in the women’s 10,000 by Kara Goucher, fourth in the 5000 by Matt Tegenkamp, and Bernard Lagat’s historic 1500/5000 double—and Americans are on a roll. But for the marathoners, it all begins on the roads of New York City. And though they will compete through Central Park, it ain’t gonna be no country road.