A week after the end of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, the dust has settled, and Team USA has three new Olympians: Parker Valby, Whittni Morgan, and Graham Blanks.
Valby finished second in the women’s 10,000 meters at the Trials, but she did not have the automatic qualifying standard for the Olympics. She had to wait to learn from World Athletics if her ranking would be high enough to get her into the Games.
It was, she learned on July 6, and she’ll join Weini Kelati and third-place finisher Karissa Schweizer—whose ranking in this event also improved enough to qualify her—on the starting line of the event on August 9 in Paris.
Valby also elected not to run the 5,000 meters at the Games. She had finished fourth in the event at the Trials, behind Elle St. Pierre, Elise Cranny, and Schweizer (who will run both the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters in Paris). But Valby had the Olympic standard for that event, and when St. Pierre decided she wouldn’t run the 5,000—opting to focus on the 1500 meters instead—Valby could have taken the third spot.
But when Valby decided to focus on the 10,000 meters, she opened up a room for Morgan, the fifth-place finisher, who had a high enough world ranking to go. Her coach, Diljeet Taylor, posted a touching video on Instagram on July 6 calling Morgan and asking, “How’s your French?”
About her decision to focus only on the 10,000 meters, Valby wrote in a text, “In speaking with my coach, and after this long of a season, we figured it would be best to focus on one race.” She added she was “excited another American distance runner has the opportunity to be an Olympian and live out her dream.”
On the men’s 5,000 meters, the word was slower in coming. Parker Wolfe was third at the Trials, but he lacked the automatic qualifying standard, and his ranking Advertisement - Continue Reading Below.
That makes Graham Blanks, a rising senior at Harvard—who finished fourth in the race—the third member of Team USA. Winner Grant Fisher and second-place finisher Abdihamid Nur both had the time standard, as did Blanks.
Here are the full teams for the distance events that were in limbo until July 7.
Women’s 5,000 meters
Results: 2024 Olympic Track and Field Trials
Men’s 5,000 meters
Sales & Deals
Women’s 10,000 meters
Weini Kelati, Parker Valby, Karissa Schweizer
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
would be high enough to get her into the Games 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!
