The Warmup

World Athletics suspends Olympic qualification until December 2020

On April 7, following the announcement of the postponement of the Olympic Games to 2021, World Athletics announced a suspension of Olympic qualification until December 1, 2020. This meant that from April 6 through November 30, an athlete’s results would not count toward Olympic qualification. The world ranking system (another way to qualify for the Games) will also be frozen during this period. The one exception to this rule is world records, which can be run provided they’re ratifiable.

Previously, the ioc had announced that all athletes who earned a spot at the Tokyo Games would still have that spot when the Olympics run next year. (The only Canadians who had already qualified when the postponement was announced were Trevor Hof bauer and Dayna Pidhoresky, both in the marathon.)

This will give track athletes who’ve found themselves in worst-case scenarios, with no access to training facilities, time to get back to Olympic-level fitness. Every runner now has a new target date: Dec. 1. However, with the biggest three months of marathon racing in history ahead of us in the fall, Olympic hopefuls can still run those races and have a shot at earning prize money, but they won’t have a shot at Olympic qualification. Marathoners may now decide to shoot to qualify through the winter at a marathon like Houston (where Canadians have historically had success), or to plan for a spring marathon in 2021, but depending on timing, that makes it difficult to build again for an Olympic competition in July 2021.

On April 9, Athletics Canada announced that the Olympic track and field trials would take place at Montreal’s Complexe sportif Claude-Robillard from June 2 4 to 27, 2021.

On April 8, World Athletics announced t hat the World Championships, previously scheduled to take place in Eugene, Ore. i n 2021, have been postponed to July 15–2 4, 2022, so as to avoid conf lict with the Olympics.— CR