Athletes in action at the Olympic Games (© Getty Images)
Some 1900 athletes from more than 190 countries will compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games when the athletics programme begins on 30 July.
The Olympic qualification period for all stadium events finished on June 29 and World Athletics’ Olympic qualification system has now been finalised, showing that about 70 percent of the athletes in individual events have qualified by entry standard and 30 percent by world ranking position, while 100 universality places have been awarded.
The Road to Tokyo tool on the World Athletics website shows which athletes – subject to being officially selected by their national Olympic committee – have qualified to compete at the Olympic Games.
The tool identifies the first three qualifiers per nation (in bold) but any athlete who has qualified can be selected within the limit of three per nation. As this is a qualification monitoring tool, not an entry monitoring tool, it won't highlight which athletes have been officially selected by their national Olympic committee, but team announcements of many of the leading nations will be published on the World Athletics website in the weeks leading up to the Games.
As reported last month when the qualification period closed for the longer road events, the men’s and women’s marathon exceeded their event quota. This is also the case in the men’s and women’s 10,000m and the women’s triple jump. But in these instances, regardless of the events’ quotas, any athletes with a qualification standard will still be eligible for selection to compete in Tokyo.
“Olympic qualification processes are always a bit fraught because there’s so much on the line for the athletes, but it’s exciting to see the Olympic fields take shape as the Tokyo Games approach, and it’s pleasing to see that the extended qualifying process we put in place when the Games were postponed last year ultimately allowed more athletes to reach the entry standards,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said.
“With Tokyo 2020 less than a month away, and this last milestone complete, anticipation is growing rapidly for what shapes as an extraordinary competition ahead, based on some of the performances we have seen this year. I’m delighted to see that more than 190 countries will be represented in athletics in Tokyo, reflecting the unmatched universality of our sport, and I look forward to seeing all those athletes competing at the Games from 30 July.”
Several places in the relay disciplines were claimed at the recent World Athletics Relays Silesia 21.
World Athletics
