USA Track & Field is on the verge of awarding the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, with two cities — Phoenix and St. Louis — left in the running and a final decision expected in May. USATF confirmed earlier this year that no other cities submitted a bid by the December 1 deadline, leaving the federation with a straight head-to-head choice as it works through site visits in the coming weeks. The host announcement will be the most consequential off-track decision of USATF's spring calendar and will set the table for the marathon's place inside the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic build-up.
Phoenix is pitching a downtown-anchored route around Hance Park, with municipal officials publicly framing the bid as the city's first credible push for a major U.S. championship marathon and using the recent expansion of the Phoenix Marathon as evidence of operational capacity. St. Louis, the other finalist, is leaning on its Forest Park infrastructure and the experience of hosting a string of national championship events through Big River Running and the Gateway Region YMCA. Neither city has hosted the Trials in the modern era, which is itself a break from the pattern of Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles and Orlando dominating the rotation since 2008.
The contest has been quietly intense behind the scenes. USATF has already locked in a broadcast window of 12:00 to 3:00pm Eastern on either March 25 or March 26, 2028, meaning the host city will need to deliver a course that suits late-March weather and a TV-friendly start time. Phoenix's pitch leans into reliable spring conditions and a flat downtown grid; St. Louis's pitch counters with a cooler average temperature in March, lower altitude and a course profile that has already proved capable of producing fast U.S. championship times. Both bids include the half-marathon Trials qualifier slot as part of the package.
The qualifying standards announced last year mean the field will already look different from 2024. The men's "B" standard tightens to 2:16:00 (down from 2:18:00) with a 1:03:00 half-marathon alternative, while the women's "B" standard stays at 2:37:00 with a 1:12:00 half-marathon route. USATF officials have said the tighter men's mark is intended to keep the men's field below 200 athletes for the first time in a decade, easing course-management headaches for the host city. That brief alone may quietly favour the candidate with the simpler logistical footprint.
For the athletes, certainty cannot come soon enough. Boston, London and the rest of the spring 2026 majors have already produced Olympic Trials qualifiers under the new standards, and elite agents have begun shaping training blocks 22 months out from race day. A May announcement gives the marathon community an extra year of clarity around course profile, altitude and likely conditions — an unusually long lead time by U.S. Trials standards, and a deliberate part of USATF's promise to do better than the late, scrambled build-up that defined the Orlando 2024 cycle.