World Aquatics has settled on a new and altered qualifying system for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games that will incorporate six new 50 meter stroke races for the first time. While the official document that includes time standards won’t be released until after the IOC rubber-stamps the procedure at its meeting later this week, World Aquatics previewed the procedure with select members of the media last week, including a radically-different process for deciding who gets to race the stroke 50s.

Quotas

The quotas wouldn’t normally be the lead angle on a qualification system, but for swimming the topic was pervasive throughout the conversation.

Swimming had 900 athletes in Rio, 878 in Tokyo, and 852 in Paris. The number has been reduced to 830 for the Los Angeles Olympic Games, which has forced AQUA to fit a “bigger foot…in the same size shoe” with the addition of six new events.

The reduction in swimming was not a reduction across aquatic sports, rather the aquatic sports cap remained the same with spots shifted to women’s water polo, where two more teams will be added to bring the women’s field up to 12 teams and match the men’s.

AQUA is expecting around 194 National Olympic Committees to participate...

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Author: Braden Keith