Atlanta 2020: Tokyo Olympic marathon places to be decided…

Sign at US Olympic Trials, photo by Larry Eder

The pressers were well attended, and the athletes were good interviews. I do get disturbed when Olympic reporters ask the easy questions, I.e, ” how does the coronavirus affect you?” To which Scott Fauble noted the he did not have it. Also any questions on the Nike shoe, is, well just crap. How about recognizing the 700 plus stories here of how elite athletes made it to the Olympic Trials?

Tokyo Olympic marathon places to be decided

Bernard Lagat, photo by Larry Eder

ATLANTA (USA): The U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials will be staged this Saturday in Atlanta and will be shown on NBC beginning at noon Eastern time. The men are scheduled to start at 12:08 p.m. and the women at 12:20 p.m. More than 700 men and women qualified for the event, and the top three are expected to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Marathon in Sapporo this summer. Prize money of $80,000-65,000-55,000-20,000-10,000-6,000-3,000-1,000 is available to the top eight finishers in each gender. One of the women’s favorites would have been Amy Cragg, who won the 2017 World Championships bronze medal (and was a 2016 Olympian), but she is reported to be out due to illness. That leaves Des Linden as the only 2016 women’s Olympian in the race, and she will be tested by – among others – Sara Hall, Jordan Hasay, Kellyn Taylor, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Stephanie Bruce and a lot of others. The men’s race includes Rio 2016 bronze medalist Galen Rupp and sixth-placer Jared Ward, plus Leonard Korir, Dathan Ritzenhein, Scott Fauble and two amazing veterans: Abdi Abdirahman, trying for his fifth Olympic team at age 43, and Bernard Lagat (45), trying for a fourth U.S. team and a sixth Olympics (his first two were for Kenya). From thesportsexaminer.com.