Olympic Trials leave distance runners high and dry

Athletics Canada’s decision to hold the Canadian Olympic track and field trials in Calgary may be a welcome overture to Canada’s sprinters and hurdlers, whose strength and power will only be aided by higher elevation. For distance runners, however, Calgary’s 1016 m elevation has relegated their events to races that are more about pride than a realistic shot at making the team.

Despite the name and despite the hype, the Olympic Trials aren’t really about qualifying for the London Games. Most middle-distance and distance athletes intent on making the team should have already qualified by hitting the “A” standard ahead of the nationals, according to Athletics Canada.

If athletes haven’t hit the “A” standard by June 27, the implication is that they should have known better than to leave it until the Olympic trials, an event that most people would mistakenly assume to be the essential waypoint on the road to London. It’s a bit of twisted logic to put athletes at a disadvantage of hitting the standards at the trials.

Organizers say aerobic events starting with the 3000m steeplechase will be adversely affected by the elevation in Calgary, but “it’s not like the fact that [the trials] are in Calgary snuck up on anybody. That’s been known since 2010,” said Athletics Canada’s Mathieu Gentés.

It’s curious to note that the Americans have held their trials during the last several Olympic years either in Sacramento, California or Eugene, Oregon – both venues at or very close to sea level. U.K. athletes will hold their tryouts in low-lying Birmingham and even the Kenyans have chosen to select their 10,000m team based on performances at Hayward Field.

Simply put: elevation matters.

But this is only one factor in a sport where the difference between winners and also-rans are often separated by mere seconds, where leading can mean losing and winning, nothing at all.

If a marathon is a slow death after 30K than the 3000m steeplechase is acute agony from start to finish. It’s a crucial reason why most track events beyond and including 800m metres provide pacers. Track embraces a strange paradox. Despite the apparent weight placed on the primacy of individual effort, middle- and long-distance track athletes are inexorably reliant on one another to run fast.

Middle-distance runner Malindi Elmore is blunt in her assessment.

“It is very hard to run the standard alone,” she said. “In North America this year, there have been only three races in the women’s events won in a “A” standard time. Recently, Nicole Sifuntes and I raced in San Diego with a rabbit (Morgan Uceny, 2011 No. 1-ranked 1500m runner) and three women ran the “A” standard. Without a really strong, even and fast, rabbit, an “A” standard is close to impossible.”

Unlike sprints, drafting plays a key role in distance races on the track and anyone who has watched the Tour de France or even the Olympic triathlon understands that leading takes a lot more energy than following. It’s why Ryder Hesjedal and Simon Whitfield compete on teams. In the absence of rabbits, which are prohibited at the trials, there is no upside to taking the lead and whole lot of risk.

“Unless they are significantly better than the rest of the field,” Elmore adds, “anyone bold enough to take the lead risks getting out-kicked. ”

Unlike road racing, in track, there are a myriad of ways to lose.

“At nationals and Olympic trials, the goal is to win or be top three. So you don’t want to put yourself in the position to try to run fast for the standard and get passed by everyone else in the race – effectively leading them to a fast time,” she said.

As it stands now two women in Elmore’s event already have the standard eliminating any incentive for them to make the race fast.

Over 42.2K, there is enough distance and time for a good race to become a great race and a great race to unravel in the last 5K. In middle- and long-distances on the track, the margin for error and surprise are much narrower. Parity of competition, an absence of pacers, and a field containing athletes who have already made the Olympic standard, have made the demarcation between those who will fly to London and those who will ride the bus home that much thinner.

Even under ideal conditions hitting the Olympic standard for Canadian athletes will be a tall order. Athletics Canada’s decision to hold the trials at altitude just made that task tougher.