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2020 USA Olympic Team Trials Marathon -
Complete Coverage
By MarathonGuide.com Staff
The USA is the only country that uses a single race to select the three runners whio will represent it on the Marathon team for the Olympics. For 2020, both the Men's and Women's Trials will be held on the same day in Atlanta. This is the third time for this format - prior to Houston bidding on and being selected for both Men's and Women's Trials for 2012, Men's and Women's races were held on different days in different venues. According to varying criteria for the men and women, any athlete who had run faster than the "qualifying standards" is qualified to participate in the Olympic Trials Marathon and by the deadline 265 men and 513 women had qualified. That is an incredible number of qualifiers, more than double the previous
For 2020, the races would be held on a one-time use course designed as the previous Trials courses had been designed: a multi-loop format to optimize viewing by spectators and ease logistics. That said, Atlanta is hilly and the Trials course is quite hilly.
And while a foot race normally has one winner, there will be six (three men, three women) to emerge from the Atlanta Trials as "winners," having won the right to represent the USA at the premier running and marathon event held every four years, the Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo in August 2020. Some runners will be thinking about winning the race, but really any will be happy with a top 3 finish and trip to the Olympics; that is the goal.
In the history of the Olympics, the USA has brought home 12 medals in the marathon: Thomas Hicks (St. Louis 1904 - gold), Albert Corey (St. Louis 1904 - silver), Arthur Newton (St. Louis 1904 - bronze), Johnny Hayes (London 1908 - gold), Joseph Forshaw (London 1908- bronze), Gaston Strobino (Stockholm 1912 - bronze), Clarence DeMar (Paris 1924 - bronze), Frank Shorter (Munich 1972 - gold), Frank Shorter (Montreal 1976 - silver), Meb Keflezighi (Athens 2004 - silver) and Galen Rupp (Rio de Janeiro 2016 - bronze). For the women's Olympic Marathon, the USA has brought home only two medals: Joan Benoit who won the first women's marathon event and set a world record while doing it (Los Angeles 1984 - gold) and Deena Kastor (Athens 2004 - bronze). If the USA hopes to improve on that count in 2020, it will have to happen from one of the men or women who will be competing at the 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon in Houston.
We will be continually updating this page to add content and commentary. Please come back often as we will try to provide the most intelligent coverage of the Olympic Marathon Trials available...
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