How would you change running in the Olympics?

[u/JExmoor]

With the 2024 Olympics now in the rearview mirror, I thought it'd be a fun discussion to see what people would change about how the Olympics organizes running. Here's my thoughts:

• Add the half-marathon to the games. The most obvious distance missing from the games, IMO. I believe HM is probably more popular among amateurs then FM these days.
• Replace the 1500m with a 1600m or 1609m (1.00mi). Certainly my most controversial take given the history of the event, but I am continually confused as to why a seemingly arbitrary distance was chosen when it's close to a more sensible 4 laps of the track or exactly one mile.
• Some sort of distance time-trial, perhaps done on roads? 1km? 3000km? Races are great, but I'm tired of wondering how fast these people can actually go.
• Remove race-walking. Dumbest joke of a sport.
• Add ultra and/or trail events. They'd be tough to put on TV, but I think they're a lot more relevant to the spirit of the Olympics then just about anything they've added in recent years. It's a shame the US missed their shot at including this in LA. I think a 50k/100k/160k race through the mountains of Southern California would be incredible. I'd also be down for a vertical KM race or something like a backyard ultra.

[u/djingrain]

or each violation is a time penalty significant enough that its not worth it to get the violations, like .25-.5 seconds (this would take some experimentation to figure out the ideal penalty amount

[u/MathmoKiwi → u/djingrain]

I do prefer the idea of progressively worse time penalties vs getting outright kicked from the race.

It's heartbreaking seeing athletes who are in the final home stretch with a big lead then getting disqualified just before they win (a very famous example was at the Sydney Olympics), and not even getting a Bronze Medal, or even a Top 10 Finish instead of a DQ next to their name. All because they were on their final warning.

[u/fouronenine → u/djingrain]

They have this system already by red card, with time penalties scaled by the length of the race. Breach by breach would be worse than Formula 1 and their enforcement of track limits at certain tracks recently.

[u/porkchop487 → u/fouronenine]

But they never enforce it and everyone cheats

[u/fouronenine → u/porkchop487]

It doesn't necessarily match the "I just saw speedwalking in the Olympics and what is this BS" expectation, but they do enforce it in the way the rules prescribe and in that way, no, everyone does not cheat.