U.S. Olympic Team Marathon for Tokyo 2020

US Olympic Marathon Trials – Atlanta 2020

What a great race this was in Atlanta Georgia, 260 qualified men and 512 qualified women, if you can run a qualifying time, you can toe the line. If you finish in the top 3 at the Trial, you get to be part of the Olympic Team for the summer Olympics.

Pros and amateurs alike raced their hearts in Atlanta today. For many, just being in this race was the dream or achievement of their running careers, But for six runners, this is just the beginning on their road to Tokyo this summer.

This is not a in-depth analysis of the race but I will touch some of the highlights, starting with the Men.

As the race begin a couple of runners started to hit the front to get some camera time, Luke Puskedra being the first one to go to front and Clayton Albertson at the 1 mile mark, honestly I don’t understand why go so early in such a long race, by mile 6 there was another breakaway, Brian Shrader and Dan Nestor, I don’t blame them because if they were feeling great that’s why they went for it, anyway at mile 16 the one and only Galen Rupp came to the front and took the lead, and he went to finish in 2:09:20 to win the race by 42 seconds and qualify for his fourth Olympics.

Coming in 2nd place with a personal best Jacob Riley in 2:10:02 he came as a surprise to my on making the team and probably to many because we didn’t see this coming, is good to mention that he lives in Boulder and runs for the Boulder Track Club.

And to complete the team coming in 3rd place Abdi Abdirahman in 2:10:03… to qualify for his 5th Olympics… wow just wow, He is 43 years old and is the oldest man ever to make the US Olympic marathon team in history.

On the Women side, I could feel some nervousness at the beginning when a few kind of did a false start, but after that they went on their way to fight for those 3 spots available, their race was a little different that the men, all the favorites were together up to mile 22 when Aliphine Tuliamuk and Molly Seidel broke away from the group and it completely shattered the group with Sally Kipyego in third place and this is how they were going to finish the race in that same order, as surprising for me and everyone else, none of this athletes were my top 3 predictions, so big surprise, there.

One thing I really like and I would like to mention is that I was very happy to see Hoka ONE ONE shoes on the feet of the 1st place Aliphine Tuliamuk who finished in 2:27:23, a Kenyan born who came to the US and became citizen and now will represent the US in the Olympics.

Coming in 2nd with Saucony shoes being on the feet Molly Seidel who came in only 8 seconds later with a time of 2:27:31, another big surprise, being this one her first ever marathon.

And to complete the Olympic team coming in 3rd place with a time of 2:28:52 was Sally Kipyego, another Kenyan born athlete, who competed in the 2010 olympic games in the 10,000 meters getting a silver medal for Kenya.

… and if you are not excited or inspired after this race, I don’t know what will inspire you, this race was during the perfect weekend especially if you live en LA as this March 8 will be the LA marathon with this year being the largest field ever of 27,000 registered runners.
Who is excited for that... I will be there, and I hope to see some of my friends.

That’s it for today, let me know in the comments what did you like or dislike about the Olympic marathon trials, also if you live in Los Angeles are you running the LA Marathon.

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Until next time and remember Run with Purpose! God Bless.

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