World Athletics Championships: Tracking which Indian athlete is in the hunt for an Olympic qualification spot and who has already sealed their places has become quite easy now. Track and field's global governing body, World Athletics has launched ‘Road to Paris 2024', an online tool to help athletes, media and fans track the qualification process for next year's Olympic Games.
Searchable by discipline, country and qualification status, the tool provides a real-time view of each event throughout the Paris 2024 qualification period, which ends on May 5 for the marathon and on June 30 for all other events, World Athletics informed in a release on Monday.
The qualification system for the athletics competition in Paris, to be held between August 2-11, was released in December 2022.
As was the case for the Olympic Games in Tokyo and the World Athletics Championships in Oregon and Budapest, the qualification system is based on a dual pathway, with 50% of athletes qualifying through entry standards and the remaining 50% qualifying through world rankings.
The Road to Paris 2024 tool is only intended to give an overview of which athletes are in a qualifying position; it doesn’t, and will not, indicate which athletes have been selected for entry by their National Olympic Committee. Final entries will be published nearer to the time of the Games.
The tool also covers the qualification status for the five relay events, though these are not dependent on entry standards or world rankings.