The JAAF held the award ceremony for its Japan Marathon Championship Series IV last night in Tokyo, the whole thing streamed live on Youtube. The two-year series, in this case running from April, 2023 to March, 2025, scores marathoners on time and place in domestic races and high-level international races, with athletes' two best performances combining to give them their series rankings. Series winners score guaranteed places on the 2025 Tokyo World Championships team , with the top 8 women and men earning prize money: 1st: ¥6,000,000 (~$40,000 USD) 2nd: ¥3,000,000 (~$20,000) 3rd: ¥1,000,000 (~$6,700) 4th: ¥800,000 (~$5,300) 5th: ¥700,000 (~$4,700) 6th: ¥500,000 (~$3,300) 7th: ¥300,000 (~$2,000) 8th: ¥200,000 (~$1,300) Points for time are scored according to World Athletics scoring tables, with placing points based on races' designated level. Given the JAAF's financial interests in the big domestic races and the income stream from their TV broadcasts, the scoring system ...
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On the US side you're missing Hall, Meb, Ritz, Abdi, Sell. All of whom would I think at the least, give the last placed guy a good run for his money and in some cases be well clear.
Unfortunately I'm a Brit and with the possible exception of Dan Robinson and maybe Andi Jones I doubt we'd have many beating the last American finisher...
I hear what you're saying about priorities, although at least two of the bigger-name Americans you mention would be hard-pressed to crack the Japanese squad. For what it's worth, there are two other guys who ran 2:08 and four other guys who ran 2:09 within the Berlin qualification window but didn't make the Japanese team.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Canada is actually sending some marathoners this time. From the looks of it they might be able to give the U.S. a go in the Marathon World Cup team competition.