IAAF Announces new Entry Standards and Qualification System for 2020 Tokyo Olympics

On Sunday in Doha at the IAAF councils meeting a new qualification system and new entry standards were approved for all the track and field events for 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Under the new system, athletes can qualify for the next Olympic games in two ways.

Achieve the entry standard within the qualification period

The athletes can still qualify for the Olympics by achieving the qualifying standards, but the new marks are much harder than in the past. For example, marks were lowered from 10.16 to 10.05 and 11:32 to 11:15 in the men's and women's 100m dash. From 45.40 to 44.90 in the men's 400m; 2:19:00 to 2:11:30 and 2:45:00 to 2:29:00 in the men's and women's marathon event. Men will have to throw 85.00m while women will have to hit 64.00m marker in the javelin.

Qualify by virtue of his/her IAAF World Ranking position in the selected event at the end of the respective qualification period.

Last year the IAAF the introduced World Ranking System which should encourage top athletes to compete head to head in the important meets, such as Diamond League, World Challenge and other high profile meets.  The World Ranking System will be used to fill fields at the Olympics. 

"The process is designed to achieve about 50 percent of the target numbers for each event through entry standards and the remaining 50 percent through the IAAF world ranking system".  the IAAF wrote in a press release.

Read full IAAF press release here.

Entry Standards 2020 Tokyo Olympics

 Qualification Period: 

• May 1st, 2019 to June 29th, 2020 most events
• January 1st, 2019 to May 31st, 2020 for Marathon/50km race walk
• January 1st, 2019 to June 29th, 2020 for 10,000m, 20km race walk, and combined events

Men