Track and field events at this summer’s Olympics won’t start until August, but Team USA is already losing medals in June.
Ething Mu, who won gold in the women’s 800 meters in Tokyo and then won the world championships the following year at age 20, is not going to Paris. Neither is Brooke Anderson, the 2022 world champion in the women’s hammer throw, or Loulouga Tausaga-Collins, the 2023 world champion in the women’s discus.
What happened? Easy. USATF Olympic Trials held.
Tausaga-Collins crashed out of the discus qualification round in spectacular fashion, with the throw missing the legal target area by such a wide margin that organizers could count themselves lucky no one was on the track. Anderson, whose best throws this year rank first, fourth, seventh, 10th and 12th in the world, fouled in more modest fashion in the final.
But the lingering image of these trials may be of a tearful Mu crossing the finish line after collapsing on the first lap of the final in Eugene, the sport’s showcase venue in the United States. She had battled injury and a self-imposed break to regain her love of running and was looking great as she won her semi-final.
USA Track & Field rejected Mu’s appeal, with veteran coach Bobby Kersey claiming that another runner had clipped him.
Mu’s ability is not in doubt. Her 10 fastest times are all under 1:58, including a national record of 1:54.97 at the Prefontaine Classic. In Mu’s place, the United States will send Juliet Whittaker, who did not break the 1:59 mark until Monday’s final, when she took third in 1:58.45. Whittaker is a rising star who won the NCAA championship for Stanford earlier this month, but reaching the Olympic podium in a few weeks will require a strategic run and perhaps some good luck.
At least Whittaker has met the Olympic qualifying standard by doing so in the trial finals. In the hammer throw, the three athletes who have met the standard look to Erin Reese, who placed third at the trials but has yet to make it to Paris.
All of this means the track and field community in the US has to ask itself: Is the current format – in which athletes’ spots on the Olympic team are decided solely on the basis of performance at the trials – really the best way to select a team?
It’s a question that has come up before, most notably in 1992, when Reebok’s ubiquitous “Dan and Dave” advertising campaign was built around world decathlon champion Dan O’Brien and 1990 Goodwill Games champion Dave Johnson. O’Brien missed. Three attempts in the pole vault at the US Olympic Trials. The literal loss of one bad day at an event resulted in millions of dollars in marketing wasted as well as a prime opportunity to firmly establish the sport in the consciousness of a nation with limited attention spans.
The tests are, for the most part, specific to the United States. And in some ways, this is right. One reason is embarrassment about the country’s wealth. In many countries, eligibility is quite simple. Anyone who meets World Athletics’ high standards for eligibility is included.
Consider Ireland. For a country of just over five million people, Ireland performs quite well in athletics. The women’s and mixed 4x400m relay teams are legitimate medal contenders. Yet even in the 400 metres, in which Ireland is clearly strong, only three athletes are currently ranked high enough to make the Olympics. Therefore, holding trials for individual 400m would be meaningless. On the other hand, the United States has 12 sprinters in the men’s 100 meters who meet the automatic standard, followed by another four who would currently qualify based on world rankings if they lived in almost any other country on Earth. . It makes sense to reduce that number through tests.
After newsletter promotion
Another factor behind the tests is the United States’ obsession with “playoffs” and “clutch performances.” US pro and college sports award tournament winners, not “regular season” winners. At the Olympic Games, the media and viewing audiences focus almost exclusively on the Olympics, with the World Championships a distant second and any Diamond League or World Cup competition barely registering. The Trials – as an extension of the Olympics – are held up by many in the U.S. Olympic community as the best possible test for future Olympians. Others disagree. Kersey called MU’s boycott “another sign that no matter how good we are, we can leave home some better athletes than other countries. It’s part of our American way.”
And so the trials are undoubtedly dramatic. Spectators enjoy cathartic moments like Sha’Carri Richardson, who lost her spot on the Tokyo Olympic team after testing positive for a drug found in cannabis, who swam back in the 100m to claim a berth for Paris. Was trying hard to win.
But they also got to see close-up shots of Mu crying as she finished speaking and walking down the stands, a journey of only a few meters that must have felt like miles. And as we see in the women’s hammer throw and other events in which some top-three American athletes haven’t met the standards, that drama is left unresolved when everyone packs up and leaves Eugene.
What is the solution? The World Championships model points the way to ensuring that athletes like Mu are not left out. World Athletics reserves spots for the defending champions and Diamond League season winners, and the country that has the defending champion can bring a fourth person to the championships.
Even without fourth place, will the trials be cut short if a reigning Olympic or world champion who meets the Olympic standard gets an automatic spot on the team?
And even if they were, is a bit of fleeting drama in Eugene worth sacrificing a shot at something even more thrilling in Paris?
