US trials running into financial tribulations

When will the sites be determined for the US marathon trials for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing? ''Sometime before 2008," said Jim Estes, USA Track & Field's long-distance running manager, only partly in jest.

Though several sources with direct knowledge of the process say Boston has been chosen to host the women's race and New York the men's, USATF and the US Olympic Committee are wrangling over financial details. ''We have several issues which are commercial in nature which we need to resolve," said USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel.

The key area involves conflicting sponsorships between the Olympic committee, which has final say over all trials, and the track federation.

''If it smells like an Olympic trials, you use the word 'Olympics,' and you have rings attached to it, there are very strict rules about what you can and can't do," said Glenn Latimer, chair of USATF men's long-distance running, in a recent teleconference.

The delay is frustrating race officials from the ostensible host cities who are eager to start planning for the trials, which would take place in November 2007 in New York and April 2008 in Boston.

''Our concern is that it gets resolved as soon as possible," Boston Athletic Association executive director Guy Morse said yesterday. ''There's clearly a lot of work to do, and it's already late."

Although Minneapolis-St. Paul and Akron are also in the chase for the trials -- which last time were held in Birmingham, Ala. (men's) and St. Louis (women's) -- Boston and New York are considered more desirable, since they stage two of the world's Big 5 marathons and since the trials would be held on the same weekends as the traditional races, maximizing attendance and media coverage.

''The time is now," said New York race director Mary Wittenberg, who was here Monday to watch three Americans finish in the top five of the Boston Marathon for the first time in more than two decades. ''If that didn't prove that our men deserve to be on the biggest stage for the biggest race leading to the Olympics, then nothing ever will.

''We have to grab this opportunity and run with it."