U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field Men's Javelin preview, by Kara Winger
Photo by Charlie Townes
Hey field fans! TrackTown USA Throws Ambassador Kara Winger here. I’m back in a dual role serving as ambassador to the throws community for TrackTown USA, AND as a competing athlete at this year’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field.
The only American javelin thrower who has thrown the Olympic standard in the Paris qualification period is Maggie Malone-Hardin. Yes, this is the men’s javelin preview, and I’m mentioning the only U.S. athlete with the javelin qualification mark, a woman! Yay, women! The men’s standard is 85.50m, and the closest American athlete this season is Jordan Davis at 84.45m. More on him later. Cool story.
The severe lack of standards in American javelin means that World Athletics Rankings will be majorly at play this weekend to determine the men’s javelin team headed to France. Let’s have a little lesson!
You can learn all of this from the World Athletics source!
In a lot of words:
An athlete earns a Result Score by throwing a distance at a meet. Result Scores are listed by event in this very long document, available if that last link doesn’t download automatically for you via World Athletics here under the “Scoring Tables” dropdown menu.
A Placing Score is added to the Result Score, based on what level of meet the athlete is competing at and what place they achieve at that meet. The Ranking Criteria lists the categories of competitions around the world, from OW (Global Majors: Olympics and Worlds) down to F (national permit meetings and “other). The USATF Olympic Track and Field Trials is a B Meet, which means (for no other reason than deduction, subtraction, and observational skills (both mine but mostly Ariana Ince’s)) that first place gets 100, second 80, third 70, fourth 60, and so on (though 5th at a B gets 55 so I’m not completely sure of the progression after that. It’s not linear).
The sum of the Result Score and the Placing Score is that athlete’s Performance Score for that competition.
An athlete’s World Ranking Score is the average of the athlete’s Top 5 Performance Scores across a 12-month period.
For Paris, the Olympic standard AND World Ranking qualification period started July 1, 2023, and will end on June 30, 2024. So, only competitions after July 1, 2023 count toward an athlete’s World Rank, and athletes hoping to qualify on World Rank must have at least 5 competitions that give them a Performance Score, in order to achieve that World Rank.
Athletes ranked within the Top 32 of their respective event are eligible for selection to the Olympic Games.
In fewer words:
Result Score (based on this scoring table) + Placing Score (higher if you place higher and if the meet you achieve the place at is better) = Performance Score
Ranking Score = Average of Best 5 Performance Scores in a 12-month period (July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024)
In math:
RESULT SCORE + PLACING SCORE = PERFORMANCE SCORE
AVERAGE OF TOP 5 PERFORMANCE SCORES = RANKING SCORE
TOP 32 = PARIS
This Road to Paris list will help you out, because only marks achieved after July 1 of last season are included, and only athletes who have achieved 5 Performance Scores in that time period are listed. That is NOT to say that athletes who achieve their quota of competitions this weekend won’t pop onto the list, because that is very possible, but the Ranking Score that marks ~32nd on the list will probably stay pretty consistent (right now it’s ~1170). The only issue I’ve run into so far on the Road to Paris list is that Jordan Davis is absent, despite being ranked 42nd in the event. Again, more on him later. Very neat story brewing.
A thing to remember about rankings is that Olympic Trials is not just one B Meet, but two. In the field events, having a qualification round plus a preliminary and final later means two distinct competition opportunities. Two competitive chances to throw an Olympic Standard, made all the more possible by lack of automatic qualifying marks from the first round, a great move by meet organizers to allow for more attempts at better marks if athletes need them for Paris. Two very important ranking points days for anyone who does not reach that big 85.50m mark.
U.S. leader Jordan Davis threw 84.45m to win the Division II NCAA title for Southern Connecticut State University. The DII Championships is an F meet. Jordan’s PB earned him a Performance Score of 1180 (1165 Result Score + just 15 Placing Score for 1st). By contrast, his clutch performance at the USATF New York Grand Prix (an A-level comp) earned him a Performance Score of 1203 (only 1083 for throwing 78.72m, but a 120-point Placing Score for second place). This guy’s PB before 2024 was 72.85m, almost 12 meters less than his best now! Also a football player for Southern Connecticut, this surprise talent of the entire 2024 season burst into javelin’s consciousness with 83.77m as a season opener at Texas Relays. That was just outside the top 10 in U.S. history, and with his 84m effort in May, he sits at sixth all-time.
I truly cannot figure out why Jordan isn’t on the Road to Paris list. I actually spoke to him and his coach about it in passing, and they don’t know either. He doesn’t have a photo or birthdate on his World Athletics profile, so it’s possible that some paperwork needs to be filed? By someone? Because there’s evidence (Capers being listed as the fourth American on the list despite only two others (Curtis and Marc) visibly above him) that Jordan will be included, just not yet for some reason that is hopefully easily remedied. I’m rooting hard for a standard to really cement the deal, and his top end so far plus the maturity he showed in his first really big test in New York tell me he can absolutely do this.
Donavan Banks has thrown 80m or more in more than the two competitions shown on his World Athletics profile this season, but he did so in meets not included on the World Athletics calendar (and therefore not eligible for categorization or, thus, performance scores). As his body of work towards rankings stands right now, these two B meet opportunities are huge for him: He literally needs two more meets to achieve a World Rank after a 2023 season that saw him shut it down after May. The Olympic Trials will be the opportunity the 82.90m athlete - now coached by former World Record holder Tom Petranoff - needs to burst onto the Road to Paris list. His consistency this season has been impressive, and he’ll need that (and maybe a little more) both days in Eugene to climb the rankings enough to think about an Olympic roster spot.
Marc Anthony Minichello just collected his second career NCAA Title (a B meet at the DI Championships level, btw), and did so on this very runway. He was third at last year’s National Championships in Eugene, and did the tough job of chasing Rankings points after that meet in an attempt to make it to Budapest. He’s gotten ahead of that beast this year, has been very consistent, and currently sits 30th on the Road to Paris list. As the third American javelin thrower on that list (if Jordan Davis is counted), the Georgia Bulldog is far from safe, but his steady results this year on a runway he knows how to perform on could do him some favors. At just 24, I’ve been really impressed with his ability this season to fit in NCAA responsibilities and professional-level points chasing, and accomplish both goals.
Ranked fourth on distance in the U.S., defending national champion and Tokyo Olympian Curtis Thompson sits at 14th on the Road to Paris list, his Ranking Score of 1241 all made up of marks from 2023 and 2022 (Area Championships carry forward three years). While the 3rd-best-ever American javelin thrower and PanAm Champ from 2023 hasn’t enjoyed the big distances yet this season, his 81m efforts in his season opener and recently at the Iron Wood Classic are right where he was at when he had a big breakthrough in 2022. He’s in pretty good shape right now in terms of rankings, but of course wants to improve on his season’s bests, and winning yet another national title is always the safest bet.
Capers Williamson, with an entry distance that has him 8th on the Trials list by seed mark, is actually listed as Next Best on the Road to Paris Rankings. Since three athletes per country go to the Olympics in each event, this denotion means that three other American athletes are ahead of him on that particular list. Which again means that Jordan Davis is not actually lost in the ether. But great results for Capers at this Olympic Trials could mean a second straight U.S. Team (he qualified for Budapest on Rankings in 2023), and his first Olympic one. The tallest athlete in the field truly started the party on this runway last year, so there’s no reason why he can’t pull this off. His season’s best might be 76.45m, but he’s an 80m+ javelin thrower.
Mike Stein is another NCAA athlete who could make some waves here, and is looking for redemption after his trip to the NCAA Championships for the Iowa Hawkeyes earlier this month didn’t turn out the way his big PBs this season might have predicted. Mike, Iowa born and raised and self-taught high school javelin thrower, got out to 75.59m during his freshman year (2023). His opener this season was 79.26m, and he further improved to 81.19m in May to win a Big Ten title. At only 20 years old, his Road to Paris Performance Score marks include his U20 PanAm Games Gold from August of 2023, valuable international experience regardless of distance or age level. He’s been surprising people all year, and could climb the rankings really well with these two big opportunities starting Friday.
Chandler Ault, Ethan Dabbs, Samuel Hankins, Dash Sirmon, and Ethan Shalaway are all within distant striking distance on the Road to Paris list to make some headway this weekend with great performances, but GREAT is truly the operative word. Brett Thompson and Cameron Bates have had moments of greatness in the last few seasons. All of these athletes earned their places on the start list, and must compete to see who is the best that day. They’re all capable of greatness!
I encourage you, dear reader, to dive into the Road to Paris list, the World Rankings criteria, and the Scoring Tables, and crunch some numbers of your own! What will your favorite javelin thrower need to throw Friday and Sunday to up their average of 5 performances enough to jump into the top 32? Stay tuned! I’ll share my own findings before Sunday’s final.