World Athletics Tightens Qualification Standards for 2028 Los Angeles Olympics

World Athletics, the global governing body for track and field, announced on Tuesday stricter qualification criteria for athletics events at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Athletes aiming to compete there will need considerably better results than ahead of the Paris Games, and a larger share of places will be allocated through the world rankings.

New split

About 40% of athletes will qualify by meeting standards, while 60% will do so through world rankings. At the 2024 Paris Olympics the ratio was 50-50.

The qualification system covers 23 events for men, 23 for women and two mixed relays: the 4x100 m, which will make its Olympic debut, and the 4x400 m.

What has changed

The biggest tightening affects endurance events:

• men's marathon: from 2:08:10 to 2:05:00, more than three minutes faster than for Paris;
• women's marathon: from 2:26:50 to 2:22:20;
• men's 5000 m: from 13:05 to 12:50;
• women's 5000 m: from 14:52 to 14:34;
• men's 100 m: from 10.00 to 9.93 seconds;
• women's 100 m: from 11.07 to 10.96;
• men's 1500 m: from 3:33.50 to 3:30.00;
• women's 1500 m: from 4:02.50 to 3:57.50.

World Athletics stresses that meeting a standard does not guarantee a place at the Games. If more athletes reach the standard than there are places available, priority will go to those with the best results during the qualification period. The organisation says that in this case no athlete will qualify on the basis of world ranking position.

Qualification periods

For the marathon, the qualification period runs from 1 November 2026 to 30 April 2028. For the 10,000 m, combined events, race walking and relays, it begins on 19 December 2026. All other events will have a period from 19 June 2027 to 18 June 2028.

The athletics programme at the Los Angeles Games will take place from 15 to 30 July at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.