An updated version of this poll has been published here.
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A little less than a month from now, the nation’s fastest marathoners will gather in Los Angeles to race the Olympic Trials. The top three men and the top three women on February 13 will make Team USA.
Runner’s World gathered a panel of 15 experts to predict the top finishers. Each participant in the poll ranked his or her top 10 picks in finishing order. We will ask the panel to make their predictions again as the race gets closer.
Athletes were awarded points based on the votes they received—a vote for first place got 10 points, a vote for second got nine points, third received eight points, and so on.
The athletes at the top of the poll—Shalane Flanagan and Desiree Linden on the women’s side, and Meb Keflezighi and Dathan Ritzenhein on the men’s—were not surprises, because they come in with the fastest qualifying times. But then it became a little murky, although the panel seemed to hold more clarity on the women’s race than it did the men’s field. And those who dared to add Galen Rupp to their picks (he is undecided about whether he will run) were clear that if he does compete, he will make the team.
In the case of the ties in the women’s third-place and men’s eighth-place positions, we gave the higher rank to the person who received more top-three votes. While their total points both added up to 83, Amy Cragg received one second- and four third-place votes to Kara Goucher’s four third-place votes. Tyler Pennel and Bobby Curtis both received 38 points, but Pennel had second- and third-place votes to Curtis’s one third-place vote.
The results:
Women
Men
RELATED: See profiles of top contenders
Our panel members included:
- Amby Burfoot, Runner’s World editor at large and 1968 Boston Marathon champion
- Scott Douglas, Runner’s World contributing editor
- David Epstein, investigative reporter at ProPublica and author of The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance
- Peter Gambaccini, Runner’s World contributing writer
- Alex Hutchinson, Runner’s World Sweat Science blogger, contributor to the New York Times, Globe and Mail, Outside, and the New Yorker
- John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile, occasional donor of U.S. road race prize money, and avid elite running fan
- Patrice Matamoros, CEO of Pittsburgh Three Rivers Marathon
- Dave McGillivray, Boston Marathon race director and founder of DMSE Sports
- Toni Reavis, former Running Times columnist and television broadcaster
- Jen Rhines, three-time Olympian
- Brian Sell, 2008 Olympic marathoner
- Erin Strout, Runner’s World contributing editor; former Running Times senior editor
- Nick Symmonds, two-time Olympian
- Carrie Tollefson, 2004 Olympian and television broadcast commentator
- Mary Wittenberg, Virgin Sport global CEO, former New York Road Runners president and CEO
Editor’s note: In an earlier version of this article, Janet Bawcom and Lauren Kleppin were inadvertently omitted from the women’s results.
