Athletics Canada announces Olympic selection criteria

Athletics Canada says, “If three or less athletes can be nominated for an event, they will all be nominated. If more than three athletes can be nominated for an event then the Trials winner will be automatically nominated (if they are eligible) and the NTC will select between the remaining qualified athletes. Athletics Canada will not use any reallocated Event Quota places.” Reallocated event quotas refers to empty spots in the Olympic field that can be offered to athletes if other federations have declined them.

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What this means is that Athletics Canada is planning on sending a full team of three athletes per event if they are eligible, but eligibility rides on securing standard or sufficient points from the world rankings. And in the unlikely event that over three athletes make the qualification standards or earn sufficient points, unless an athlete has won trials, it will be up to the selection committee to choose who goes.

Here are the major changes for the 2020 Olympics:

The dual qualification system that the IAAF introduced in March means there are two ways to qualify for the Olympics. An athlete can either achieve the standard listed below, or qualify based on their world ranking within the qualifying period. According to the IAAF press release, the new system is designed to “achieve about 50 per cent of the target numbers for each event through Entry Standards and the remaining 50 per cent through the IAAF World Ranking System.”

With the exception of the 20K race walk, 50K race walk and marathon (which opened on January 1), the qualification period for events is 12 months, opening on May 1, 2019.