By Paul Snyder
June 26, 2024
You thought that after the whole months-long fiasco with the U.S. men and the marathon you’d get to smooth out the wrinkle in your brain dedicated to understanding arcane qualifying procedures in athletics? Buddy, think again.
In the men’s steeplechase final, Kenneth Rooks closed out the final two laps in 2:01 to decisively claim his second U.S. championship. Ranked 23rd in the world at the time he broke the tape, Rooks is comfortably within 36-man quota for the steeple in Paris. A little over a second behind him came Minnesota man and Division III folk hero Matthew Wilkinson. Wilkinson’s Road to Paris ranking? 36th (and likely to rise after this). Phew. Safe. And uncomplicated. Wilkinson’s and Rooks’s rankings within the Olympic field will ultimately be even higher, once Kenyan, Ethiopian, and French athletes not in their nation’s top-three are removed from the list.
But in third, rather than Hillary Bor nor Anthony Rotich – the only two American men coming into the Trials who’d run under the 8:15 Olympic Standard – we got 22-year-old BYU sophomore James Corrigan.
Corrigan, who placed ninth at NCAAs the other week, doesn’t have a top-100 World Athletics ranking to his name. His personal best is the 8:21.22 he posted in the prelims on Friday. Based on current ranking and time, he isn’t making the Olympic squad… emphasis on current. We’ll come back to Corrigan in a moment.
So what about fourth place, the next man up? Why, it’s none other than Evan Jager, the greatest American steepler ever. Who’d have thought it? The 35-year-old seemed to be in the twilight of his fantastic career, having run a best mark of 8:25.77 this season, and a best time of 8:22.55 within the qualifying window. HOWEVER. That time was enough to make him the 2022 NACAC champion, which greatly elevated his ranking score. So much so that he’s ranked 43rd in the world… which puts him within the ranking quota once the list is pared down to three men per country.
Evan Jager: Olympian. Again. Right?
Well, technically, it seems athletes have until June 30th to hit the standard. What that means is Corrigan can still take a stab at a sub-8:15 performance, so long as the attempt is made at a World Athletics-approved meet. He’s planning to make his bid this Saturday at Franklin Field in an otherwise low-key, all-comers sort of affair that has added a men’s steeplechase to its programming for the occasion. If he hits the standard, he’s in. If he doesn’t, Jager is.
Either way, we have quite the Rorschach test on our hands. When you squint at these two possible outcomes, who do you end up rooting for?
…Corrigan’s sudden emergence after an up-and-down spring, showing that even if your high school PRs were modest and you’re entering an Olympic year with an 8:52 steeple PB, you’ve got a chance?
…Or Jager’s possible Olympic return 12 years after his first team after multiple injuries, his club relocating, a year away from his specialty event, and a spring season that can only be described as underwhelming until now?
Both athletes are worth supporting. And even the most diehard of Jagerheads shouldn’t be rooting for their guy’s success as the result of another guy’s failure. But the continued murkiness around rankings, point calculations, and Trials placings serves to underscore the public’s frustration with a system that leads to championship races ending in persistent confusion over a satisfying conclusion.
Paul Snyder
Meme-disparager, avid jogger, MS Paint artist, friend of Scott Olberding, Citius Mag staff writer based in Flagstaff. Supplying baseless opinions, lukewarm takes, and vaguely running-related content. Once witnessed televison's Michael Rapaport cut a line of 30 people to get a slice of pizza at John's on Bleeker at 4am. You can follow Paul on Twitter at @DanielDingus.
