We’re lower than 10 weeks from the tip of the Olympic marathon qualification window, and three Canadian runners have hit the usual, with two out of six positions secured on Canada’s marathon workforce for Paris 2024. With nonetheless three vacancies, what’s going to it take from Canadian marathoners to fill the ultimate spots? David Monti, a U.S.-based athletics journalist and creator of Race Outcomes Weekly, helps us delve into the Canadian Olympic qualification image.
Final weekend, Rory Linkletter turned the third Canadian runner (and second male) to hit the usual, along with his Thirteenth-place end in 2:08:01 in Sevilla, 9 seconds beneath the lads’s Olympic mark of two:08:10. Malindi Elmore and Cam Levins have already been named to the Canadian Olympic workforce; each ran the usual earlier than the Jan. 30 nationwide workforce cutoff. Though Linkletter has met the usual, he isn’t assured a spot; if two males have been to run sooner than 2:08:01 by Might 5, he might be outdated (although that appears unlikely, at this level).
As of Feb. 19, Linkletter is among the many 66 worldwide time qualifiers for the Olympic marathon, making certain his spot in Paris, so long as Athletics Canada selects him. With Linkletter assembly the usual, the remainder of the lads’s image turns into sophisticated. Monti says Ben Preisner, Trevor Hofbauer, Tristan Woodfine, or some other rising marathoner will seemingly should run sooner to make it onto the Canadian workforce in Paris.
“With Levins already named to the workforce and Linkletter hitting the usual, there’s only one spot,” says Monti. “Ben Preisner is the one different Canadian within the ranked listing primarily based on factors, and at the moment sits 86th, exterior of the 80 spots out there. That’s not good, with a bunch of spring marathons forward–computerized qualifiers will seemingly take a couple of extra quota spots.”
(Each the lads’s and ladies’s fields for Paris have 80 assured spots for athletes who hit the usual. When World Athletics got here out with the Olympic requirements, their purpose was to fill a minimum of 50 per cent of the athlete quota per occasion by way of qualifying requirements, and the opposite 50 per cent by way of the factors system.)
“On the ladies’s facet, all 80 quota locations have been stuffed (topic to the three-per-country restrict), primarily based on the qualifying commonplace of two:26:50 or prime 5 at a Platinum Label marathon,” says Monti. That signifies that zero athletes will get in on factors, that means Natasha Wodak, Andrea Seccafien, Leslie Sexton or some other Canadian ladies with aspirations of being on the workforce might want to run the two:26:50 commonplace to be chosen. The excellent news is that the quota of 80 is just not a tough cap. Monti says so long as a rustic has room on the squad (three per nation, max) World Athletics will permit full groups to be entered if three athletes from one nation have made the Olympic commonplace. The variety of entrants may go as excessive as 100.
Linkletter hitting the usual on the 2024 Sevilla Marathon, signifies that a complete of 66 males have certified (as of Feb. 19); as well as, one man (Tebello Ramakongoana of Lesotho) has a assured spot on factors, as a result of he was throughout the first 64 ranked athletes by the Jan. 30 workforce cutoff. Because of this Preisner, who’s coming off a near-two-minute private finest of two:08:58 on the Beppu-Ōita Marathon in Japan earlier this month, will seemingly have to run once more and hit the usual to be chosen for Paris. “Ben may up his rating place to get into the highest 80 by operating an distinctive marathon or half-marathon,” says Monti. “But it surely’s extra seemingly that he’d have to run one other marathon and hit the mark of two:08:10.”
Woodfine, alternatively, is listed on the elite begin listing for the 2024 Boston Marathon in April. His solely hope of attending to Paris can be inserting within the prime 5 at a Platinum Label street race, (which might be Boston), which might seemingly earn him a spot on the Olympic workforce. (Even when Woodfine ran the usual however positioned exterior the highest 5, his time wouldn’t rely, because of Boston’s course being ineligible for information and Olympic qualification, as a result of it’s a net-downhill course.) Enjoyable truth: the fifth-place runner on the 2023 Boston Marathon got here throughout the road in 2:08:35, which is near the Olympic commonplace.
Because the Might 5 marathon qualification deadline for the Paris Olympics approaches, three spots stay vacant on the Canadian workforce–two on the ladies’s facet and one on the lads’s. The prospect of fielding a full Canadian marathon workforce in Paris, consisting of three males and three ladies, stays slim however something may occur over the following 10 weeks.
