Lifestyle

This Hill Country City Hopes to Host the 2020 Olympic Marathon Team Trials

By  | 
Tony Maples Photography

 

The USATF (USA Track and Field) announced last week that Austin has declared its intent to submit a bid to host the 2020 Olympic Team Trials in the Marathon category. If chosen, Austin would host ambitious athletes hoping to make a spot on the Olympic team for the 2020 Summer Olympics to be held in Tokyo, Japan.

4 Cities in the Running

Cities in the running

Photo: Facebook/USATFfans

Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Orlando, Florida all have officially declared their intent to bid to host the Olympic Trials. As was the case in 2012 in Houston and 2016 in Los Angeles, the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials for the women’s and men’s marathon will be held on the same day early in the year, providing a focused, single-day showcase for the country’s top runners.

“To have four new bidders for the Olympic Trials Marathon speaks to the attractiveness of the property and the support for our increasingly successful American marathon corps,” USATF CEO Max Siegel said. “We look forward to taking the Olympic Trials to a new city to select one of the world’s best Olympic marathon teams.”

Olympic Team Trials

Team Trials

Photo: Facebook/USATFfans

A collaboration between the United States Olympic Committee and its National Governing Bodies, U.S. Olympic Team Trials are held in multiple sports prior to each edition of the Olympic Games and allow athletes to vie for the honor of representing Team USA. Often the last stop in an athlete’s journey to the Olympics, the Trials also offer fans an up-close experience with America’s sports heroes before they go on to compete on the world’s biggest stage. Selection procedures for each sport are developed by the NGBs in concert with the USOC and follow parameters set forth by each International Federation.

USATF encompasses the world’s oldest organized sports, some of the most-watched events of Olympic broadcasts, the country’s No. 1 high school and junior high school participatory sport and more than 30 million adult runners in the United States