2028 Olympics to Feature Direct Qualification in 50s, 12 Qualified Relays
Qualification for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics will look different, with direct qualification in the stroke 50s and a reduction of 16 automatically qualified relays to 12.
The new qualification standards, proposed by World Aquatics and pending approval by the International Olympic Committee, are aimed at coping with a reduced quota of athletes. A plan was developed by World Aquatics, led by Chief Sports Officer Mike Unger and Swimming Technical Committee Chairperson Craig Hunter, as well as others within the organization.
The qualification plan will be presented to the IOC Executive Board at its meeting on Sept. 18-19. It is subject to IOC approval. (The full 14-page competition plan will be available upon review from the IOC).
A few of the highlights of the proposed changes were shared with media outlets late last week.
Stroke 50s direct qualification
The biggest change, previously announced, was World Aquatics’ push to include the stroke 50s in the Olympics, as they are at World Aquatics Championships. That succeeded earlier this year, but it presents a problem given that there were no additional quota spots allocated.
Qualification for the six 50 stroke events for men and women will not follow the usual A standard/B standard times. Instead of setting a qualification time, athletes will directly qualify by finishing in the top six of designated races at the 2027 World Cup, scheduled for as-yet unspecified cities and likely to be held in Europe.
In the fall of 2027, each of the three stops will feature two races (presumably one men’s and one women’s) that are direct Olympic qualifiers. Heat entries will be unlimited by nation. Swimmers over the three-day meet will advance from prelims to quarterfinals to semifinals to an eight-person final, the only level that is constrained to two representatives per nation. The top six finishers in the final will automatically qualify for Los Angeles, subject to selection procedures imposed by national governing bodies. (For instance, due to quota restrictions, a country could elect to take only one automatic qualifier and fill is other spot with a swimmer who qualifies in a different event.)
The explicit purpose is to ensure that there are not a quota-busting number of qualifiers who meet a certain time standard.
In order to fill out the event, World Aquatics has established a B standard for the event (but not an A standard). Anyone qualifying for the Los Angeles Olympics in another event and making the B standard time can then swim the 50.
Relay and Relay Swimmer Qualification
Relay qualification will be reduced at the Los Angeles Games. Instead of 16 nations automatically qualifying relays, only 12 will automatically go. However, any nation that has four or more swimmers of the same gender qualifying for the Games (or two male and two female) can enter in a relay. World Aquatics anticipates that those changes will actually increase the number of relays competing.
This arrangement provides recourse if, for instance, a favored nation that will have sufficient swimmers qualified for the Olympics fails to qualify a relay, as they can enter that relay anyway. (The case for the Paris Games was the British men’s 400 free relay, which was disqualified with a chance at automatic qualification at the 2023 World Championships and had to sweat out a chance at qualifying at the 2024 World Championships.)
The plan reduced the number of relay-only swimmers. Now called “additional relay competitors,” the qualification plan includes a rubric of how many additional swimmers can be added based on the number of qualified relays, from two additional athletes with one relay to eight additional athletes for the maximum seven relays (that’s down from 12 previously).
A Shift In Nomenclature
One is the additional relay competitors, or ARCs. They were formerly called “relay qualified athletes” in World Aquatics parlance.
Officially, the new plan does away with the system of “Olympic qualification time” and “Olympic consideration time.” Those henceforward will be known as A cuts and B cuts, respectively.
Behind the Changes
The driver of change in the qualification plan was a reduction in the athlete quota. The Los Angeles Olympics added five team sports; for aquatics, two women’s water polo teams were added to bring it into parity with the men’s tournament at 12 teams each.
While the aquatics quota wasn’t reduced, the swimming proportion was. There were 900 spots allocated to swimming at the Rio Olympics in 2016; that has steadily fallen to 830 for Los Angeles. In between were 878 swimmers in Tokyo and 852 in Paris. At the same time, the number of nations represented has grown, from 173 NOCs in Rio to 189 in Paris and a goal of around 195 in Los Angeles, part of World Aquatics’ greater mission of expanding the sport’s footprint globally. World Aquatics has a desire, beyond the 2028 Games, to expand their athlete quota, but that is dependent on the larger share of IOC participation.
Quotas for national Olympic Committee – i.e., that the U.S. is limited to a roster of 26 men and 26 women – remain unchanged.
What Isn’t There
The World Aquatics qualification plan does not include a schedule of events for the Los Angeles Games. That is to be approved and revealed later this year and is subject to input from, among others, broadcast partners as well as the interplay with other sports and logistical considerations, though that is at an advanced stage.
The 2028 Olympics will feature a nine-day schedule featuring 17 sessions. World Aquatics hopes to mimic the schedule at the 2027 World Championships in Budapest.
Among the changes that were not considered under the plan were dropping events from the program. That includes not eschewing semifinals for certain events like the 200 strokes, which serve a purpose for both athlete recovery during sessions and broadcast program pacing. There was also no discussion of expanding event eligibility to three representatives per NOC per event, as was the case from the 1980 Olympics and before.
