After an uneventful five years, the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials are back
If you've been following the sport and not just its followers, you're ready to be pleasantly blown away
Even leaving aside unanticipated eleventh-hour turmoil, I have found it more confusing than in the past to gain a sense of who the real favorites are in the 2021 Olympic Track and Field Trials in the events I follow most closely.
This is partly a personal issue; for a while, I’ve been dedicating most of my competition-related attention to high-school athletes, and just haven’t kept up with the professional scene to the same extent I once did. Also, COVID-19, though its logistical consequences are finally waning, has scuttled the normal lead-up schedule to some extent (in theory, the concentration of top talent at a few select meets to a greater degree than usually happens should make it easier to pick out the studs, but oh well). And finally, while this again might be a personal problem, I’m accustomed to seeing certain numbers and associating them with certain chances of making an American Olympic team—e.g., “14:55? She’s a shoo-in for the top three unless she’s sick.” This reflexive mapping system doesn’t work so well in times of quantum rather than gradual technology-driven performance-curve shifts. Even without the extra year of waiting, there have been a lot of changes to account for since the last one of these meets was staged.
On that note, it was just about five years ago that I embarked on my last protracted, or any, alcohol spree. I spent most of the summer and fall of 2016 wandering drunk around greater Denver and punctuating bleary hotel stays with occasional unplanned hospital visits. Despite having a clear schedule of sorts, I remember watching none of the Olympic Trials and little of the Rio Olympics themselves, and instead recall watching endless episodes of Law & Order, which I somehow sense to be the final stop of hotel drunks who eventually get it together somehow. It was actually a terrifyingly ugly time, and some of it has so far proven beyond my ability to discuss openly with anyone despite my loquaciousness about this generally. I’m only throwing in this distracting detail because I really can’t stop thinking about that dive off a cliff five years ago, when I’d been planning to follow the Olympics just like I am now, and how none of that awfulness is going to happen this time. When I consider how it all ended that autumn, it’s humbling as hell, but at this point no longer degrading, a tough but necessary balance to strike.
Anyway, the Trials start today and end a week from Sunday. Not because I know jack-all—right now, for example, my mind is unable to distinguish between Helen Schlachtenhaufen and Konstanze Klosterhalfen, only one of whom is an American citizen, and keeps slapping together recombinant names from portions of each—but because it’s because what people do, I’ll take a stab at the names I expect to see on the Olympic roster in the distance events. Each one of these in some way is a sentimental favorite; that’s one luxury of feeling less informed than others in a prediction scenario, and there’s no penalty for being wrong anyway.
USA Track and Field is such an inept mess of an organization that on the eve of the most important American track meet in five years, it’s impossible to find start lists for individual events. This page in theory contains start lists ordered by day, but right now the only day included is Day 1, and the start lists don’t even include seed times. The “status of entries” page is helpful when cross-references with an actual start list in a different tab.
The meet will be shown on television. After you turn the power on, you may have to push some other buttons, because the first thing you’re likely to see is a half-completed cooking show. Be sure to aim your eyes at the screen for a maximally rewarding viewing experience; I can’t offer guidance yet on where to keep the volume level, but I would suggest listening to what this crew has to say. I’m a lot more appreciative of network track broadcasters than most people seem to be, probably because they’re often older and tend to stick to running topics; social-media-bred approval-hounds whose main concern is saying precisely the most statistically popular thing in any situation are too mush-minded to grasp that this is an inept and failed way to go about things no matter how much self-referential energy they invest.
Note too that I may not even have some of the entry fields right, but that will apply mostly to events with finals in the distant future, so I can discharge any embarrassment I might otherwise feel about this with practiced nonchalance and passive memory-holing.
Women’s 1,500 meters (prelims today, semis tomorrow, final Monday): With one of heavy favorites reportedly out, yet in, yet still out, like Schrödinger's doper, American indoor mile record-holder Elinor Purrier becomes the statistical favorite. Jenny Simpson has had a difficult 2021, making it easy to forget that she ran 3:58.42 in October 2019, in the same race the current American record of 3:54.99 was set. That’s not that long ago.
Along with practically everyone who has dealings of any sort with Jennifer Barringer Simpson, I deeply want her to make another Olympic team. She has a lot of young 800-meter types to contend with this time, but if Purrier decides to run away from the field in the middle of the final off a decent pace, that might allow Simpson to uncork another perfectly timed long drive for the finish that lands her in the top three.
While Shannon Osika is the only other sub-4:01.00 entrant, Cory McGee has thrived since moving to Boulder, which seems to be a pattern among women previously sentenced to long stays in Florida.
I may eat even more crow here than with my other picks, but I will take Purrier (another one I root for automatically because of the random New Hampshire-Vermont connection, but who’s infinitely likable anyway), McGee and Simpson in a final that sees the top three run close to 4:01.
Men’s 800 meters (prelims today, semis tomorrow, final Monday): The top three in this event are among the seven fastest Americans of all time, and if everyone is in the same from relative to seed time when the final arrives, Donavan Brazier, Clayton Murphy and Bryce Hoppel should take the top three spots. But some young upstart always seems to make an Olympic team in this event, and someone like Murphy always seems to execute an ugly, inexplicable fade in the last 200 meters of races like these. I see Brazier, Brandon Kidder and a somewhat stale Hoppel making the squad.
Women’s 5,000 meters (semis today, final Monday): This might be the women’s event that interests me the most in 2021, even if I care more about the outcome of the 1,500. With her American-record-holding teammate out, Karissa Schweizer looks like an overwhelming favorite, having run 14:26.34. I doubt she’ll ever see a time close to that again, and I think she’ll lose to Rachel Schneider, Josette Norris and Elise Cranny tomorrow. I guess that reveals my Olympic-team picks by simple elimination.
Schneider, who went to high school a few miles from where my parents live, was always a distance runner waiting to happen while toiling for years in the 1,500. When she ran 31:09 last winter, she made it look easy. If she makes a bold move in the last mile to push or stay with what I believe will already be a fast pace, that will improve her chances greatly.
I like seeing Cranny running well for the simple reason that she was a spectacular high-school girl (4:10.95) who had her inconsistencies at Stanford but is running well as a young adult. This isn’t as rare as people believe, but anything refuting the ingrained “the best ones always flame out” narrative is a plus. Unless she’s doping, which is unlikely as she’s a Boulder County native.
Men’s 10,000 meters (final today): If Ben True finally makes an Olympic team, I’ll post a video of myself enjoying a celebratory toke of a fully legal substance. What might give him a good chance is Lopez Lomong being in the race as the top seed at 36 and being likely to perpetrate Lomongian gambits, such as running a 60-second lap with 20, 10, or five laps remaining, without warning or even seeming intent. Lomong doesn’t seem fit enough anymore to avoid paying a too-heavy price for such extravagance, but either way, erratic pacing is likely to favor the experienced and stoic True over guys like Grant Fisher and Emmanuel Bor. I just made a lot of that up.
Eric Jenkins is yet another guy with New Hampshire roots, but despite running in the 27:20s twice recently, I don’t think he’ll make the team because he’s a fundamentally boring person who gives uninspiring interviews. So that leaves the 1-2-3 runners in this event as Bor, Fisher and True. And if True is bumped, it will be On Athletics athlete (I just wanted to see how ugly that looks) Joe Klecker, one of many University of Colorado grads in the 2021 Trials mix and improving every time out. In fact, it’s probably dumb to pick True over Klecker, but sometimes you have to put your whole reputation, even your life, on the line with these games.
And speaking of breaks, Tuesday and Wednesday are “rest days,” meaning that they’ll have around 68 hours to clean all the puke and used condoms and so forth out of the stands at Hayward Field before action resumes on Thursday afternoon.
Women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase (semis Sunday, final Thursday): It seems like Coburn should have been knocked out of this box some time ago. But as long as she’s been dominating this event among Americans, she’s still only 30, and taller than everyone says. And “co-dominating” is more like it, since Courtney Frerichs is in fact the faster steeplechaser.
Colleen Quigley has run far faster than anyone in the field besides those two and almost broke 8:40 for a flat 3K earlier this year, making her a good choice for the third spot. I’d rather see someone else get it. That might be University of Colorado alumna Valerie Constien; I’m almost positive I’ve seen her running through the park up the street with some others, so she should have a lot left for the final water jump. This is a difficult event, by the way, not that you can tell from all the violent, high-angular-momentum face-planting that goes on. They should hold steeples for guys my age just so spectators can see people carted off on stretchers.
Frerichs will allow Coburn to finish just ahead of her for one last time in the final, and Constien, 30 or 40 meters back, will make it two former C.U. Buffs out of three ladies in this Olympic contingent.
Men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase (semis Monday, final Friday): Guys this age can wind up on a stretcher. It’s easy to forget that top steeplechase men are moving at about 4:20 a mile, so it’s just a bunch of bodies jumping and occupying the same general space that creates chaos in the event; it’s that they’re moving at pretty high absolute speeds for a human being. (Most people reading this would be happy with a lifetime PR of 8:15 for a 3,000-meter race without barriers.)
I’m picking Hillary Bor, Mason Ferlic and Issac Updike (an “Ike Updike”? Say that one ten times fast), in that order. Were they members of a law firm, I’d go with Ferlic, Updike and Bor, which is more rhythmically satisfying. For some reason I feel like this is an event I and lots of others will call wrongly. That’s obviously kind of a dumb thing to say since if I really believed it I’d just pick other names, but I’m too lazy.
Women’s 800 meters (prelims Thursday, semis Friday, final next Sunday): Fifteen American women have broken two minutes in this ingenious event since the start of 2019. Of these, fourteen remain active athletes, and two of these seem distinctly better than the rest: Athing Mu (pronounced “Mo”), who may be the biggest gift to U.S. track and field in at least a decade, and Ajee' Wilson, the American record holder whose name has been brought up a lot this week in contexts Wilson is probably not thrilled about.
Wilson has won all five of her races this year, but hasn’t run very fast. Mu has a recent 1:57.73, but may be beat up after her commanding multi-duty performance at the NCAA Championships, including a collegiate-record 49.57 in the 400 meters. It is almost a curse to be equally good at these events, as it implies that such a runner’s optimal event might really be the 600 meters—not an Olympic event, and bot something decent people even deign to follow.
Mu might win a one-off 800 right now. She might even win after two preliminary races, but I’m picking Wilson to win, Kate Grace to grab second and Mu—who will outperform those two in Japan—to claim a ragged but proud third. The final may see the whole field break two minutes, a kind of distaff answer to the men’s unforgettable 800 meters in the 2012 Olympics in London.
Men’s 1,500 meters (prelims Thursday, semis Friday, final next Sunday): Like everyone else, I am aware that Matt Centrowitz is the reigning Olympic champion in this event. Five years is a long time. Centro is no longer the best American at this event, but he’s good enough to make another team. It helps that there are no Americans with super-fast qualifying times.
I believe that both Cole Hocker and Hobbs Kessler are running. Both will make the final, but neither will land on the podium. That trio will include Craig Engels, Josh Thompson and Centrowitz.
Men’s 5,000 meters (semis Thursday, final next Sunday): Woody Kincaid, Sean McGorty, and Cooper Teare will either thrill the home crowd or draw on its energy in making their first—and in one case, last—Olympic team; two are Portland-based pros and one a really good University of Oregon athlete. On the other hand, next Sunday seems unlikely to ever arrive at this rate.
Women’s 10,000 meters (final next Saturday): Much has been made of the number of qualifiers in this event, which may have to be split into two heats. I don’t see why this makes much of a difference, because only sixteen or so declared women have run times within a minute of event leader Cranny’s 30:47.42 from February.
If Schneider were running this event on fresh legs, I would be inclined to pick her for the win. Of the superstars, it looks as if Emily Sisson and Emily Infeld will be running just the 10,000. Two Emilys on one Olympic team is fine, but it really shouldn’t happen in the same event.
I don’t think Cranny can hand on to a fast pace in this after already running two 5,000s, but I have no idea if she even plans to. In fact, everyone will be so gassed by next Saturday that there is no assurance that a 10,000 meters will even be staged for the women. If one is, you may see Emily Sisson, Marielle Hall and Alicia Monson make the Olympic squad.