Qualifying standards for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials have changed dramatically. The announcement came at the USA Track & Field annual meeting. Men will need to run 2:17 and women will need to run 2:37 in a qualifying marathon. While the men’s time only dropped by one minute, the women’s time is a full 8 minutes faster than the previous qualifying time.
Women can also qualify with a 1:12 half marathon or faster. For men, a 1:03 half marathon time is allowed.
It was widely expected that the qualifying standards would be tightened for 2024 after the 2020 Trials featured the largest field in meet history. In 2020, USATF reported that 773 athletes qualified (260 men, 513 women), with 685 starting the races in Atlanta (235 men, 450 women).
How much smaller would the 2020 Trials have been had they used the 2024 standards instead of the 2020 standards? Letsrun.com ran through the data from the last qualifying window. The projected decrease in the number of qualifiers is drastic as the number of women’s qualifiers is projected to drop from 513 to 91 and the men from 260 to 169. Read more from Letsrun.com on the subject at: https://www.letsrun.com/news/2021/12/usatf-announces-faster-qualifying-standards-of-218-and-237-for-2024-us-olympic-marathon-trials/
The qualifying window for marathon times opens on January 1, 2022 and for half marathon times, January 1, 2023. The window closes 60 days before the Trials race, but where and when that race (or races) will be held has not yet been announced. Leading up to 2020, runners had 28 months during which to try to achieve a qualifying standard. The time period to qualify for the 2024 Trials will be shorter. Read more about the 2024 Trials at: https://www.runnersworld.com/races-places/a38425962/usatf-announces-tougher-olympic-marathon-trials-standards-for-2024/