Shalane Flanagan: The Favorite For #1

Name: Shalane Flanagan

Age: 34

Hometown: Marblehead, Massachusetts

Marathon PR: 2:21:14 (Berlin 2014)

Best Trials Qualifier: 2:21:14 (Berlin 2014)

Previous Trials Results: 1st in marathon and third in the 10k (2012), 1st in 10k and third in 5k (2008), third in 5k and 6th in 1500m (2004)

Shalane Flanagan wants to make her fourth Olympic team on Saturday.

On paper she has the fastest time, a blazing 2:21:14 from her 2014 third-place finish in Berlin. She probably has the most leg speed out of anyone, too. She ran 15:10 on the track last spring, finished sixth in the 10k at the 2015 World Championships and set an American record in the road 10k (31:03). That is why Flanagan will look to repeat as the winner of the women’s Olympic Trials Marathon.

Watch THE TRIALS OF: Shalane Flanagan below and check out episode 1 HERE!



Can any woman in the field run three solid marathons over two years then go on to have a competitive track season? Flanagan’s consistency makes her stand out among the rest. She’s always in the conversation because she’s never not made a team. (She even finished third in the 10k on the track in 2012 but only ran the marathon in London.)



When she won in 2012, it was only her second marathon ever. Her 2:25:38 was a three minute improvement from her New York City debut in 2010 and she beat Desi Linden by a comfortable 7 seconds. Five marathons later, Flanagan has the fastest time of the field and a near-flawless running resume.

Since teaming up with Amy Cragg, Flanagan maintains that the marathon build up is strong, but "it was stressful there for awhile," as she told Runners World about a stress reaction this fall. Will that hiccup in the training block hinder her performance on Saturday? It's unlikely she won't make the team, but perhaps the victory will go to someone else. The only name in the field to recently take down Flanagan is Linden, whose gutsy fourth-place performance in Boston last April (where she took the lead at mile eight and led through 20 miles) left Flanagan heartbroken in ninth.

But Boston is Boston, and this is the Olympic Marathon Trials.

The Olympic Trials Marathon will be live on NBC.