St. Louis is going back to the Olympics. USA Track & Field and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced that the city will host the 2028 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Marathon on March 25, 2028, the race that will send three men and three women to the Los Angeles Games later that summer.
It is the first Olympic team selection event of the LA28 cycle across any sport, and it lands in the same city that staged the first Olympic marathon ever held in the United States, back in 1904.
The race will air live on NBC starting at 11 a.m. Central. The St. Louis Sports Commission is organizing the event with GO! St. Louis, the local nonprofit that has been running the city’s marathon and road race calendar for years. St. Louis beat out Phoenix for the bid, having publicly campaigned for hosting rights earlier in the cycle.
A course built around the city’s Olympic past
The route is still being finalized, but organizers say it will pass through Washington University, which housed the 1904 Olympic stadium and is still the world’s oldest modern Olympic stadium in active use. Runners will also move through Forest Park, past the Gateway Arch and Busch Stadium, before finishing inside Energizer Park, the downtown home of St. Louis CITY SC.
The 1904 Olympic marathon, run in August heat with dusty roads and questionable refreshments, became one of the strangest races in Olympic history. The 2028 trials will revisit that ground under very different conditions, with a March race date designed to give qualifiers a fair shot at fast times.
Officials point to a long Olympic resume
“We are proud to name St. Louis as the host of the 2028 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Marathon,” USATF CEO Max Siegel said in the announcement. “Throughout the bid process, the local organizing committee demonstrated the professionalism, vision, and passion necessary to host one of the most important events on the road to Los Angeles.”
USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland framed the race as the official start of the road to LA28.
“The U.S. Olympic Team Trials consistently showcase some of the best competition in the world, and we are thrilled to have the opening event for LA28 take place in St. Louis — the city that hosted America’s Olympic marathon debut in 1904,” Hirshland said. “This race will determine the initial members of Team USA for the Olympic Games returning to home soil after more than 30 years.”
The city’s track and field history runs deeper than 1904. St. Louis hosted the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Women’s Marathon and is the hometown of three Olympic gold medalists: Ray Armstead (1984, 4x100m relay), Dawn Harper-Nelson (2008, 100m hurdles), and Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who won heptathlon gold in 1988 and 1992 plus long jump gold in 1988.
Joyner-Kersee, who is co-chairing the local organizing committee, said the trials are a chance to do more than put on a race.
“St. Louis is ready to step up to deliver a first-class experience and provide a special energy the athletes will feed off as they push their limits to make Team USA,” she said. “This is much more than just hosting a race – our plans include using the power and influence of the Olympic Trials in St. Louis to make a lasting impact on the lives of young people throughout the region, inspiring them to chase their dreams and believe anything is possible.”
Marc Schreiber, president of the St. Louis Sports Commission, noted that the trials will share the calendar with Olympic soccer matches the city is also set to host in 2028. “It is going to be a special year for our community,” he said.
What runners need to hit
Qualifying for the 2028 trials will require athletes to run an Olympic Trials standard during a designated window:
- Men: 2:16:00
- Women: 2:37:00
A faster “A” standard, which will come with travel and accommodation support from the local organizing committee, will be announced later. Full qualification details are posted on the USATF website.
For context, the 2024 trials in Orlando used standards of 2:18:00 for men and 2:37:00 for women, meaning the men’s bar has been tightened by two minutes for 2028. The women’s standard holds steady. That has put a fresh spotlight on the elite American marathoners already chasing the new standard and on training programs like the BYU group that produced multiple 2024 Olympians.
What’s at stake
Six athletes will leave St. Louis with Olympic team spots, and the top three finishers will also be in line for the prize money pool that has grown in recent cycles. The Los Angeles Games will be the first summer Olympics on U.S. soil since Atlanta in 1996, which adds weight to a selection race that already tends to produce some of the most pressure-packed running in the country.
Athletes have a little under two years to chase the standard. Smaller qualifier races, like the McKirdy Micro, have become a regular pipeline for runners trying to punch a ticket. The road to LA28 starts in St. Louis.
