The US Olympic Committee mismanaged the US women's marathon team
Three American women qualified for the Olympic marathon: Fiona O'Keeffe, Emily Sisson, and Dakotah Lindwurm. Jessica McClain, who finished fourth in the US Marathon Trials (15 seconds behind Lindwurm) and met the qualifying standard (2:26:50), went to Paris as a possible alternate after word got around that one of the three was injured.
Fiona O'Keeffe was indeed injured on Sunday. She limped visibly at the start, soon fell behind, and retired at about 5 km. O'Keeffe has since posted that, while she had been fighting a hip injury, she thought she could be competitive. She has said that withdrawing on Saturday would not have allowed McClain to run, given the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Friday deadline to substitute for injured athletes.
Did Fiona O'Keeffe meet her obligations to the US Olympic movement ? Her first two obligations were to give full in the Trials effort and to respect the rules, notably those against performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). O'Keeffe is a champion scholastic and star professional runner who set a Trials record in the marathon and has never failed any PED or whereabouts test, so she did meet those requirements. O'Keeffe, however, did not meet a third obligation, which is to give an honest account of her fitness before the substitution deadline. Her failure to meet that obligation is understandable to some extent given the emotional and financial cost of dropping out before the race[1].
Whatever one may say about O'Keeffe's decision, she should not have been in the position of making the choice to run on her own. The USOC, by allowing O’Keeffe to make this decision, did not meet its obligation to field the best possible women's marathon team.
First, the USOC knew of O'Keeffe’s injury. There was no reason to send McClain to Paris absent some belief that one of the 3 qualifiers would be unable to run competitively.[2]
Second, the USOC let O'Keeffe run based on her own account of her readiness. USOC was patently at fault here.[3] Olympians have all sacrificed to compete in the Games and it is unrealistic to expect them to withdraw without being required to do so after an independent evaluation. The USOC should not have allowed O'Keeffe to run; one of the Committee's jobs is to know when athletes are not ready and it failed at that job.
Third, it has been argued that it would have been unfair to O'Keeffe to replace her because it would have cost her income from running. Distance runners (indeed most Olympians) are not rich like Steph Curry and any lost income would have been painful. This is a real issue which must be addressed.
The NOCs cannot solve these problems because, as with doping, they have a conflict of interest among fielding the best team, being tempted to cheat, and being sympathetic to the hard work of the Olympians. The IOC can, however, do something.
The IOC can insure athletes' participation. If an athlete cannot compete because of an injury or illness (though obviously not because of a positive drug test), then the IOC can verify the athlete's status and allow the alternate to compete if the principal is somehow not ready.[4] The excluded athlete would then receive an insurance payout in two parts: (1) a fixed amount to compensate for the time spent in preparing for the Games; and (2) a variable amount to compensate in part for lost income; lost income would be verified and capped to avoid paying too much to the lucky few who do not need the money.
The IOC can require independent fitness tests where there are legitimate reasons to suspect an athlete is not ready. Such tests would have to be conducted by the IOC, and not by the NOCs, to reduce political pressure on individual athletes. (Recall here the public complaints from the Ethiopian men's 10 k team about imposition of a race strategy by their NOC officials).
The IOC can impose penalties for not being fully transparent about fitness or health, by an athlete or by an NOC, just as it does for PEDs or as it should for contagious diseases. A start would be fining the USOC for letting Noah Lyles run the 200 after testing positive for COVID.
None of this helps Jessica McClain who has surely worked as hard as those who did run and who, at age 32, may not get another shot. What I propose will not right the wrong that the USOC did to McClain, but it may prevent a recurrence.
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[1] I am less sympathetic now that I know that O'Keeffe had not appeared in public before the race, as Sisson and Lindwurm had done, and has since outsourced her story to a PR firm.
[2]. Lindwurm finished 12th and Sisson was 23rd.
[3]. Another example is 100-meter champion Noah Lyles running the 200 after testing positive for COVID.
[4]. Some countries do not have more than one athlete who has met the qualifying standard. Accepting an alternate who does not meet the standard should be forbidden because of the risk that an NOC might push qualified athletes to withdraw for corrupt reasons.