CITIUS MAG: Marc, the Marathon Trials have been a costly undertaking for some of the cities over the last couple of years. What are you doing differently this time around, or building with the local organizing community, to have the funding to really pull this off?
Marc Schreiber: That’s a great question, Chris, and something we had to put good thought into early on, to make sure a bid was viable. Fortunately, we’ve gotten a great boost from several local partners. I think that’s going to be a common theme you’ll find in St. Louis—the passion and enthusiasm for this, not just from a fan standpoint, but from our business community and our political community as well. We have to go through a great effort to make sure we’ve got the resources in place to do a heck of a job producing the event, but we’re off to a great start.
We’re lucky to have somebody like Lal Karsanbhai. He’s the CEO of Emerson Electric. Emerson has stepped forward already with a significant contribution to the effort and several other entities have done the same. That was while we were preparing the bid, and it gave us the faith that we could go forward and feel good from a fundraising standpoint that we could get to a point where we’ll execute the event at a high level.
It’s also gratifying to see the interest from Energizer Park and the soccer team, St. Louis CITY SC. They’re not just doing this to stage the end of the trials. They built that magnificent facility to leverage soccer as a way to present and promote St. Louis to the country and the world, and they see hosting the trials there the same way. So you start looking across the board and you have many supportive partners who are going to help us from a financial standpoint. It’s not just the artistic part—it’s the financial part we feel positive about. It’s not easy, but we feel good about where we are right now.
CITIUS MAG: In the bidding process request for proposals document, USATF projected $13.5 million in economic impact for the local organizing committee. And from what I read, you saw about $20 million from figure skating not that long ago. What are some of the learnings you’ve had from hosting events in hockey, gymnastics, and figure skating? And when was the turning point where St. Louis turned the corner into a major sporting-event city?
Marc Schreiber: I’d like to say it was a long time ago. That’s due to many people who came before me. Jackie can attest to this. But I feel like we’ve been reinvigorated.
St. Louis is a place where, in the ’90s, we hosted the Big 12 football championship, the U.S. Olympic Festival, Jackie’s farewell track meet in ’98, and the Final Four in 2005. So St. Louis has long been a great sports-event destination. The challenge for us is that our industry has become so competitive.
When I talk about being reinvigorated, it comes from the great momentum of late: we hosted the NCAA Frozen Four last spring, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January, and the men’s basketball first and second rounds in March. And now, this fabulous announcement. We learn from every one of those events, and it gives us really good practice. I think that delivers a message to USATF: going through the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, assembling our local organizing committee, and all that goes into that conditions us really well. We can take the great takeaways and lessons from that and apply them in the planning process for 2028.
CITIUS MAG: I know the final course is going to be released much later on, but how did you design a route that’s fast and fair while also showcasing the city’s Olympic history?
Marc Schreiber: We had to take a lot into consideration there, because we knew how important it was for qualification to have a fast course. That was on our minds all the time. In terms of course elevation, St. Louis is close to the perfect scenario—there are some hills in there, so that’s what we have to deal with—but it was very much driven by wanting a fast course.
At the same time, it was about addressing that vision of connecting to our Olympic legacy, doing something innovative, and actually finishing in a 20,000-seat stadium to create something completely new for the trials—a spectacular moment. So we had to balance all that out. I think you’ll see that a lot of the start, especially from Wash U to downtown, is kind of just downhill, which is very advantageous. And then you showcase the best of the community: you get to run by the Arch, you get to run by Busch Stadium. So on this one, I’d like to think we’re able to have our cake and eat it too, addressing the needs of all the constituencies here.
CITIUS MAG: The LOC is going to set the men’s and women’s “A” standards. As of right now, we’re seeing everyone in the world get faster. The standard for the 2027 World Championships for the men is 2:06 and 2:23:20 for the women. And in 2024, we had that confusion about whether we were going to send a full team, because of the push for world rankings and the Olympic standards. How are you engaging those conversations with World Athletics so that, from a product standpoint on the day, the hope is it’s clear-cut: three men and three women get to go to the Olympic Games from the race people are watching?
Max Siegel: Yeah, those conversations are ongoing, and I can tell you we have a lot of advocates who do a couple of things. First of all, you never want to impact the athletic integrity of the event. We start from that point of view. Then we’re in this ecosystem with 214 countries around the world, so you’re trying to balance global fairness and those kinds of things. But at the end of the day, I think everyone is focused on engaging fans, getting more people to pay attention, and elevating our sport.
So we have conversations about the product we put on for our fans and how we select our teams. Our team is the hardest team in the world to make, because you’ve got to be the best at that particular point in time. But the advocacy is 365 days a year. We have wonderful people who represent us, like the David Katz’s of the world. Renee Washington and I get involved. We have the athlete voice. Jay Holder can speak to some of the things we do to ensure that, number one, we have the best team on the field of play during the Olympic Games, but also to advocate for having our selection process reflect the first three across the line.
Jay Holder: I think this is the third Marathon Trials in a row where, at this point, there’s an element of mystery about the top three and how that will work with the World Athletics system. As Max says, we have a really strong and fair voice in the World Athletics conversation. You saw the outcome of the World Road Running Championships conversations we had — that was a special exception, but it was made in the interest of the best thing for the sport. So that’s sort of where these conversations are going as well.
But one point I’ll make is that the standards keep getting faster, and Americans keep getting faster with them. We were concerned in 2024, and in 2020, that the times were going to be too fast and we’d be in that situation you talked about. But in 2020, despite the hills and the wind, everybody ran the standard and we didn’t have to worry about it. And in 2024, we saw some fast times as well. Since then, we’ve seen Americans get so much faster on both the men’s and women’s side. So yes, we’re going to continue to have these conversations about how to ensure the product, the excitement, and that first-three-across-the-line, easy story to tell. And at the same time, the athletes’ performances are going to keep rising to the standards that World Athletics sets.
CITIUS MAG: It’s still really early, but when you picture that lasting image people are going to take from the 2028 Trials, what is it?
Marc Schreiber: There are many answers I could give, but the thing that comes to mind for me—because I think it was a unique element of our bid and what we’re proposing—is having a packed, 20,000-seat Energizer Park at the finish, doing something that hasn’t been done for the trials before. You imagine that scene as the runners come in through the funnel and enter the facility: the atmosphere, the environment. I think that’s going to be one of those all-time coolest moments you’ve been a part of.
As I think about our planning, there are many things we have to cover and do really well, and that’s one of those pieces I hope can come together and be that lasting legacy from the event — something not just memorable for St. Louis and the fans who are there, but for the athletes as well, so they get to experience something that elevates the event and elevates the sport.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee: As I’m sitting here, I was getting goosebumps, because I think it’s so important that the athletes feel and know that they were thought of first, regardless of all the other things we have to do. To know that, coming through that last part, they’ll have 20,000 fans there for them—that’s something you’d remember. And to know that this happened right here in St. Louis. Always, always, the athletes are first, because without athletes, there wouldn’t be any trials. So here’s a moment they can remember, that happened right in St. Louis.
Max Siegel: I have to agree with both of them about the athletes coming first. But the most memorable thing to me, as a consumer and a fan, is how the community made me feel. I can look at different events and say, ” Wow, that was really special—I got to experience one of the most inspiring athletic performances with my family. From the time I got out of the parking lot into the stadium, and watching the course along the way, the people of the community made me feel special and embraced.”
What really has me excited about St. Louis is having leaders like Marc and Jackie and the whole community excited about hosting our athletes. I think it will enhance the athlete experience, because the community is so excited about the event. But for me, it’s that moment where it all comes together: the athletes feel special, you get to witness this moment in time that will last forever, and then you walk away feeling like you got to experience something unique and different—and that you felt special yourself.
Listen to the full episode on the CITIUS MAG Podcast here.
