PUBLISHED 10/26/2007
Runner's World asked a panel of marathon experts* to pick the top 5 finishers (in order) in the USA Men's Olympic Marathon Trials. Then we tabulated their responses as follows: first, 9 points; second, 7 points; third, 5 points; fourth, 3 points; fifth, 1 point. The table below shows what happened when we added all the scores.
Of the 134 runners entered in the Trials, only 13 received votes from our experts. Three runners dominated the voting--Ryan Hall, Abdi Abdirahman, and Meb Keflezighi--and there was only a modest difference in their total scores. Hall also led in first place votes, 12, vs 10 for Abdirahman, and only 5 for Keflezighi.
Brian Sell came much closer to the Big Three in the category of "He'll finish somewhere in the top five." Scores: Hall, 36; Abdirahman, 34; Keflezighi, 34; and Sell, 30. We had a total of 39 experts on our panel, including an Olympic Marathon gold medalist, and Olympic Marathon bronze medalist, four past Men's Marathon Trials winners, and several Boston and New York City Marathon winners.
Of course, the USA Olympic Team isn't selected by a panel of judges. Let the racing begin!
MARATHON TRIALS, PREDICTED TOP FINISHERS, BY RUNNER'S WORLD "EXPERTS" PANEL
Ryan Hall: 244
Abdi Abdirahman: 233
Meb Keflezighi:202
Brian Sell: 124
Alan Culpepper: 68
Dathan Ritzenhein: 47
Peter Gilmore: 26
Dan Browne: 10
Khalid Khannouchi: 24
James Carney: 8
Clint Verran: 5
Miguel Nuci: 5
Josh Rohatinsky: 4
*Our experts: Roy Benson, Richard Benyo, Jonathan Beverly, Marc Bloom, John Brant, Amby Burfoot, Mark Conover, Bob Cooper, Rod DeHaven, Tom Derderian, Hal Higdon, Jim Ferstle, Tom Fleming, Peter Gambaccini, George Hirsch, Peter Julian, Don Kardong, Deena Kastor, David Kuehls, Ryan Lamppa, David Martin, Dave McGillivray, Greg McMillan, Greg Meyer, David Monti, Kenny Moore, Dick Patrick, Carey Pinkowski, Peter Pfitzinger, Marty Post, Joan Samuelson, Frank Shorter, Phil Stewart, Toni Reavis, Bill Rodgers, Matt Taylor, Bob Williams, Todd Williams, David Willey
Note: To eliminate as much bias as possible, we didn't solicit votes from any current athletes or their coaches.
