The U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials are races like no other. The top three male and female finishers earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic team, a system the U.S. has been using since 1968 for men and 1984 for women.
With stringent qualifying standards to make it into the race, the trials are the most exclusive marathon in the world, outside of the Olympics and world championships. The races held on February 13, a hot day in Los Angeles, provided plenty of drama befitting the occasion.
From 164 men and 198 women who toed the starting line, six U.S. marathoners for the Games in August in Rio emerged: Galen Rupp, Meb Keflezighi, Jared Ward, Amy Cragg, Desiree Linden, and Shalane Flanagan. Flanagan, who struggled with the heat in the race’s final miles, As the race progressed, the water bottles got warmer, however before her husband picked her up and carried her to a wheelchair. It was one of the race’s indelible images.
Coming into the event with the fastest qualifying time among women, Flanagan was the highest profile athlete to suffer in the warm weather. But many others experienced similar difficulties.
And those athletes—including top 10 finishers, some who struggled across the line in far slower times than they have run before, and runners who had to drop out—have raised questions about the race itself.
Hey, Runners: Yes, Downhill PRs Count Advertisement - Continue Reading Below, far warmer than most elite marathoners ever race in? In all, 105 men completed the race (64 percent) and 149 women (75 percent) finished.
And did the amenities offered to the runners and their families, from merchandise to food to timing, measure up to expectations for a national championship, which they had been anticipating for several years?
Runner’s World followed up by phone on these questions with representatives from USA Track & Field and Conqur Endurance Group, the Los Angeles-based local organizing committee that hosted the race as well as the Los Angeles Marathon the following day. Officials responded to questions via email.
collapsed at the finish line
The 2016 marathon trials were the first to be broadcast live on network television. According to NBC, which aired the event, 1.2 million people tuned in to watch the race.
But the focus on television meant that the races started late—10:06 a.m. Pacific for the men’s race and 10:22 a.m. for the women. The temperature was 66 degrees and rising, and the course offered little shade.
“Throughout race week, USATF worked closely with our sports medicine team to evaluate the heat and whether any changes were needed to race time,” Jill Geer, USATF spokesperson, wrote in an email to Runner’s World. She acknowledged that the weather was not conducive to record performances. But the temperatures were “well below the threshold set by the American College of Sports Medicine for cancellation of an event.”
That heat, Geer wrote, also helped the U.S. select the strongest possible team to compete in Rio, where the conditions are also expected to be warm. “In essence, the Olympic Team that selected itself is an extremely strong team by any measure; it also is a team that has proven it is best able to handle the conditions that will prevail at the Olympic Games.”
Hey, Runners: Yes, Downhill PRs Count Runner’s World understood why the race started late, they objected to the location, frequency, and temperature of fluids along the course.
Fluid stations were located starting at about three and a half miles and every three miles after that. At the trials, the first several tables at each aid station held the athletes’ personal bottles—in which they placed their preferred sports drinks.
Immediately after the personal tables were what the race termed neutral fluid stations—bottles of water and Powerade that were available for anyone to take.
After those two opportunities, however, athletes were without drinks for the next three miles. Several said they were thirsty.
“I kind of challenge the logic of where they located the neutral fluids,” said Erin Moeller, 38, from Mount Vernon, Iowa, who was running in her third trials. “You’d get your elite fluids, then 25 feet after that, bottles of water.”
Runners had their hands full with their personal bottles, and then were trying to grab water to pour over themselves. It was a juggling act to open the caps on the water bottles—kept closed to remove the possibility an athlete’s drink could be tampered with in a way that would cause a positive drug test—without dropping their personal bottles.
Athletes wondered why organizers couldn’t add an extra fluid station when the weather forecast showed high temperatures likely, or why the fluids couldn’t be staggered more along the course. But Conqur wrote that all qualifiers had been emailed information regarding fluids in advance of the race, and the placement was deliberate.
“Not all athletes opted to use special, personal fluids. Athletes who did not have special fluids were therefore able to access water at two locations equidistant on the course,” the company wrote in an email to Runner’s World.
As the race progressed, the water bottles got warmer, however.
Kristen Zaitz, 35, of Broomfield, Colorado, said her pleasure at collecting a bottle of water was diminished by the temperature of the contents. “I was kind of shocked when I grabbed the first one and realized how hot it was,” she said. She also had hoped for a misting station along the course, standard for warm-weather races in big cities. She made it to 20 miles before dropping out of the race due to the heat.
Conqur wrote that 90 percent of the athletes participated in the personalized fluids program, and those fluids were cooled. “Water and Gatorade were provided at neutral stations at ambient temperature,” a representative wrote. (Download Your Training Plan.)
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Several athletes reported that at the prerace technical meeting—during which organizers review details of the course and rules—officials promised sponges, soaked in cold water, would be available to cool their skin during the race.
Right before race time, however, an announcement was made: The sponges the race had ordered unexpectedly contained soap, and were inappropriate for runners’ use.
While most athletes who spoke to.
Runners referred to the towels as rags and later joked that the rags were so small, they were barely effective. “About the size of a 3x5 recipe card,” one runner said.
But Amanda Rice, 31, from Portland, Oregon, called the pieces of cloth a “saving grace” in the heat.
Conqur said that when the setup team was soaking the sponges before the race, they detected a soap-like residue, and turned to a contingency plan. Conqur’s spokeswoman wrote:
“We opted to use hand towels and cotton cloths at the cooling station. They were dipped in ice water and there was ample supply. As you saw in TV coverage, using towels enabled athletes to use them to cool off by wearing them across their necks while they ran large sections of the course, while others ingested water directly from the towels.”
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Runner’s World they had expected bottled water to be available at the sponge station, based on what they heard at the technical meeting. That impression was a misunderstanding, however, according to Conqur. A representative wrote that at the technical meeting, race officials told athletes the sponges were to be soaked in bottled water—not that bottled water was available.
A long walk back
Athletes and coaches at the technical meeting said organizers impressed upon the athletes that if they needed to drop out of the race, they should try to do so near the start-finish area of the four-loop course.
Andie Cozzarelli, 25, who qualified for the trials by virtue of a 1:12:51 half marathon, was debuting at the full marathon distance. A lingering illness she had picked up before the trials, combined with the heat, made her race difficult. Just after the halfway point on the second loop, she was struggling to breathe, and she stopped running.
Course personnel instructed Cozzarelli to wait to be checked out. She waited in the shade of an overpass for what she guesses was 20 to 30 minutes before medical staff got to her.
Officials checked her vital signs, pricked her finger for a blood sugar test, and told her they had to get to other athletes who were in more serious distress. She was cleared to walk back to the finish, several blocks away.
Although she had her boyfriend with her, Cozzarelli, who stands just five feet tall, had to maneuver her way through throngs of spectators to retrieve her bag at the finish area. Leaving the finish area, she had to pass through more crowds. Standing at a corner, she collapsed. Her boyfriend caught her before she hit the ground, and a spectator who happened to be a doctor came to her aid. She never lost consciousness.
Medical officials again came to Cozzarelli, and this time she was sent via ambulance to a nearby hospital. She was released after a few hours.
She doesn’t fault the medical team, Cozzarelli said. “They had a lot going on. I recognize that,” she said. “I wouldn’t blame them for the hectic atmosphere.”
She wonders, though, whether a better system could have been in place to transport athletes who had dropped out midway through the loop. “It needed to be easier for me to get from one place to another,” she said, noting that at least an hour elapsed between when she dropped out and when she collapsed. “I should have had some sort of transportation. I wouldn’t say it was horrible, but there are little places [the race] slipped up.”
According to USATF and Conqur, 38 athletes were evaluated and treated at the medical tents on the course and at the finish. Four were transported to local hospitals for further evaluation and treatment. They were all released by Sunday evening.
Conqur said 21 board certified doctors and registered nurses were at the finish line and on the course to help runners. Two medical tents were on the six-mile loop, and two mobile gators were available to pick up runners needing assistance and transport them to the medical tents. The Los Angeles Fire Department helped communicate to the medical team when an athlete required help.
The power of a T-shirt
While most athletes’ complaints centered on the health risks posed by the heat, many runners expressed disappointment that there wasn’t more pageantry surrounding the event. After all, many had worked for years to achieve the qualifying standards to get into the race. They knew they didn’t stand a chance of making the team for Rio; for them, competing at the trials was their Olympics.
“The City of Los Angeles and the local organizing committee, headed by Tracey Russell, put a tremendous amount of work and thought into executing the event,” Geer wrote in an email. She also noted that USATF will be conducting an athlete survey to get feedback about the event.
But runners said it felt less special than many other races they had experienced. They appreciated personalized bib numbers, but they didn’t receive participant T-shirts. The freebies consisted of a reusable shopping bag that held a plastic Coca-Cola fluids bottle and a separate bottle of water.
Shirts were available for purchase, but many spectators and runners couldn’t find them. Moeller’s family made special shirts to wear in support of her, and during the weekend, other runners’ friends and families offered to buy them.
The Conqur spokeswoman said T-shirts are being sent to all participants after the race, but referred all other questions about merchandise to USATF. “We did sell merchandise at the event but athletes who competed will receive a free shirt,” Geer wrote.
Runners’ frustrations began to gain notice with a statement runner Pat Rizzo posted to his blog three days after the race. Widely circulated through the running community, the post mentioned his disappointment in everything from vague communications before the race to a lack of food at the finish line of the race—no bananas or bagels; just sports drink and water.
Amanda Rice says when she came to the finish line in 3:10, far slower than her 2:40:34 qualifying time, the clock had been turned to zero. “It was disheartening to finish and not have much celebration for finishing in the Olympic trials,” she said.
reached into the mid 70s. Athletes could attend a reception on Thursday evening and a complimentary post-race lunch on Saturday, but to bring a guest to either event cost $75. For Moeller, in Los Angeles with her husband and their three children, the events were “astronomically expensive to attend.”
Athletes did praise local officials on their efficiency at distributing numbers at the technical meeting and the number of volunteers on hand to check uniforms to make sure they complied with logo rules. Zaitz recalls waiting in long lines in Houston for those functions.
Gina Slaby, an athlete who also ran in 2012, says her Los Angeles experience was better, because she was able to get a room in the host hotel. “I thought it was coordinated pretty well,” she said. “Bottle drop-off, the technical meeting was there, start and finish line was in close proximity.”
The race may have been efficient, but without finish-line food and with many athletes’ families priced out of race functions, the runners missed a feeling of celebration.
“If I were to compare it to other trials, it was very underwhelming,” Rice said. “It didn’t feel like there was really anything special about this race. You lose how special this really is, to have made it here and have made it this far.”
All agreed that watching a recording of the race on television, it looked great. “It gave a lot of exposure for the sport,” Zaitz said.
But others wondered if that came at the expense of the runner experience.
“It didn’t feel like this was a race for the runners,” Rice said. “It was a race for the media, it was a race for another objective, whatever that objective was. It really doesn’t feel like the runners were a priority.”
A spokesman for Conqur wrote on Tuesday afternoon that athletes’ complaints don’t match what they had heard about the race. “We’re disappointed to hear that some athletes had a negative experience,” he wrote. “The feedback we have received from athletes, coaches and from industry peers has been overwhelmingly positive.”
—Erin Strout contributed to this report.
Cooper Lutkenhaus Breaks 29-Year-Old HS 800 Record is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World The power of a T-shirt, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
