The Olympic Marathon Trials Runners By The Numbers

by Fiona Gallagher

During my month-long winter break from college, I was looking for something to fill my usually jam-packed schedule. And, like many endurance athletes, I am incredibly data-driven. So when my Instagram feed was filled with stories of elation or heartbreak after the 2023 California International Marathon – the last chance to qualify for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials – I decided to take a closer look at the 173 female Olympic Trials marathon qualifiers.

Let’s do a deep dive into the data.

First off, women could qualify by running a marathon in 2:37:00 (eight minutes faster than the standard last Olympic cycle) or a half-marathon in 1:12:00. Out of the 173 qualifiers, 158 (91.3%) qualified through the marathon standard, while 15 (8.7%) qualified via the half marathon.

The qualifying window was open between Jan. 1, 2022 and Dec. 5, 2023, leaving approximately two years for athletes to meet those standards. 70 runners (40.5%) qualified in 2022 and 103 (59.5%) qualified in 2023. December 2022 was the most popular time within the window to qualify, with 37 runners snagging an OTQ. Similarly, the most popular months to qualify across the two years were December (52 overall qualifiers), October (43 qualifiers), and June (22 qualifiers). Zero athletes ran a qualifying time in August 2022 or 2023.

The qualification race must be a USATF-certified course, meaning the elevation loss cannot exceed 3.3 meters/km. By far, the most popular qualification race is the California International Marathon (CIM), with 50 runners achieving an OTQ there. This race offers a net downhill course, usually has near-perfect weather conditions, and attracts a large competitive field going for an OTQ or BQ. Following CIM as the most popular qualification race were Minnesota’s Grandma’s Marathon, the Chicago Marathon, the Boston Marathon, and Bakline’s McKirdy Micro Marathon.

The fastest qualification time was Emily Sisson’s 2:18:20 at the 2022 Chicago Marathon. The median time was 2:34:28, and Tammy Hsieh clinched the final qualification spot in a nail-biting 2:37:00 finish at the 2023 CIM.

The median age of female qualifiers is 30 years old. The youngest qualifier, at age 22, is Ava Nutall, a senior at Miami University. The oldest qualifier is Dorothy (Dot) McMahan, at age 47, who competed in the marathon at the 2013 World Championships.

Qualifiers represent 38 states, as well as Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Russia. The most common home state is California, with 17 qualifiers, followed by Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Most of the qualifiers work standard nine-to-five jobs, and the professions span the gambit, from doctors to military members to biostatisticians (so many smarty-pants in the mix!). Other than professional runners, the most common professions include teachers (10 athletes), researchers (6 athletes), Ph.D. students (5 athletes), and engineers (4 athletes). There are 17 total athletes in the medical field—including nurses, registered dieticians, and dentists. 34 qualifiers (19.7%) are coaches, with some doing so as their primary occupation and others doing it in addition to their “day” jobs.

Not counting the numerous dog moms (yes, there are many!), there are 33 mothers who qualified. This includes three of the five fastest qualifiers (Keira D’Amato, Betsy Saina, and Sara Hall).

79 of the qualifiers have some sort of sponsorship with a main shoe or apparel brand. Of course, sponsorships look different for everyone, and many of these brands offer amateur, sub-elite, and/or professional sponsorship opportunities. For example, Oiselle recently signed five athletes overlooked in their running career for their Underbirds campaign. Here’s the breakdown of sponsors:

*Note: This includes groups like Hansons-Brooks and amateur sponsorships (basically anything runners have in their bios)

To dive even further into the sponsorship field, here are the top-ten ranked qualifiers and what brand they’ll be rocking on the start line:

*Gabi Rooker, who wasn’t sponsored at the time of this analysis, has since signed with Nike.

Finally, how many influencers do we have in the mix? Let’s take a look at social media followings. The median Instagram follower count is 1,641.5, but there are certainly some athletes with significantly higher followings. Molly Seidel comes out on top with the most Instagram followers out of all qualifiers. Here is the entire top ten.

Overall, we have a field of incredibly impressive women who represent so much more than their fast marathon times. I know I’m excited to watch the Trials play out on Feb. 3 in Orlando and see the continuation of their stories.

WATCH: Feb. 3 – women start at 10:20 a.m. ET/7:20 a.m. PT – LIVE on Peacock

If you’re in Seattle, come to our Olympic Marathon Trials Watch Party & Brunch at Rough & Tumble.