2 Runners Qualified for the Olympic Trials at This Marathon. Then They Learned Their Times Won’t Count.

Spencer Friske broke the tape at the Baystate Marathon on October 18 in 2:15:04, winning by more than five minutes and bettering the 2:16 time he needed to qualify for his second Olympic Marathon Trials.Or so it appeared, in the hours immediately after the race.Now it looks like the time won’t count toward the Trials.Although the course for the Baystate Marathon, in Lowell, Massachusetts, was USATF-certified, the event was not USATF-sanctioned.And that distinction will mean both Friske and women’s winner Caitlin McGinley, who thought she had qualified with her 2:36:08 (the women’s standard is 2:37) after narrowly missing last year at the same race, will likely have to try again if they want to make it to St. Louis in 2028 for the Olympic Marathon Trials.Friske and McGinley separately declined interview requests from Runner’s World the day after the race except to say they were thankful to the Baystate Marathon for “putting on a great race.”On race day, Friske, 32, who lives in Boston, told the Lowell Sun he was aiming for the Trials time and knew he was close. “At the half, I was on it, but thought I may have come out too fast,” Friske said. “I just kind of hung tough and got it done.”McGinley, who is 29 and lives in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, was the Baystate winner last year, but she finished in 2:37:12, missing by 12 seconds (although that race was not sanctioned, either).On her Strava after the race, before she learned of the snafu with the race’s credentials, she wrote, “For years, this was a dream I was almost too afraid to let myself envision. Today, I finally got to live it.”In USATF’s database of sanctioned events, the Baystate Marathon is shown as having a sanction from 2017 to 2020, but not since then.It is unclear how Annie Heffernan, who qualified for the 2024 Trials at the Baystate Marathon in 2023, was eligible to run.“I can’t speak to what happened in 2023 [when Heffernan qualified],” Jay Holder, a USATF spokesperson, told Runner’s World in a statement.“Our 2028 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Marathon qualification standards state that an event must be sanctioned by USATF or another World Athletics member federation to count toward a qualifying time. Sanctioning demonstrates an event’s commitment to applicable competition rules, athlete and spectator safety, and appropriate event management. We have made best efforts to communicate this to race directors and Trials hopefuls. However, we need to increase these efforts and will be doing so in the coming days as we want to ensure everyone is aware. We do not want to see people’s hard work and accomplishments end in disappointment.”On its website, USATF sets out the rules for qualifying for the Olympic Marathon Trials. The third item on the list is that the qualifying race must be sanctioned. Sanctioning “signifies adherence to national and international rules, commitment to safety, and proper management of event operations,” USATF says.The fee for sanctioning a race of Baystate’s size, 2,385 finishers in 2026 across the marathon and half marathon, would be roughly $2,000, or less than $1 per finisher, depending on whether the race used USATF insurance or its own.Holder said in the past, USATF has reached out to races that weren’t sanctioned when it appeared likely they might have Olympic Marathon Trials qualifiers.For instance, USATF reached out to the Marine Corps Marathon before the 2025 race to inform them that they did not have a sanction. No sanction was filed.Tessa Barrett ran an Olympic Marathon Trials qualifying time of 2:34:08 at that race—and it didn’t count. She later had to attempt another qualifier, and she ran the time she needed at last year’s California International Marathon. The Marine Corps Marathon, meanwhile, has applied for and received a sanction for its 2026 race on October 25.“Our goal is to be consistent across the board and make sure that the rules are clear, so that everyone can have the same expectations,” Holder said.The Baystate race director, Glenn Stewart, wrote in an email to Runner’s World that he couldn’t comment yet on the 2026 race.“I guess the only thing I’ll say for now is it was my responsibility to make sure the race is eligible for use as an OTQ, or possible world and national records,” he wrote. “That responsibility falls on me and me alone.”Masters legend Gene Dykes also fell victim to the same course administration mixup when he ran what appeared to be a age-group world record at the Jacksonville Marathon in 2019. Dykes was then 70 and ran 2:54:23 (6:39 pace), bettering the existing record by 20 seconds.The time did not count as a record, because the event was not sanctioned.Qualifying for the Boston Marathon does not require an event sanction, only a certification, and the Baystate Marathon is popular among Boston hopefuls.Find Your Next Running PlaylistSarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!