World Athletics announces qualifying standards for 2024 Paris Olympics

Athletics has been an integral part of the Olympic games since the revival of the Games in Athens in 1896. It was an all-men's event at the 1896 Athens Games. 32 years after the 1896 Athens Olympics, women competed in athletics for the first time at the 1928 Amsterdam Games.

As for the Paris 2024 Olympic games, a total of 905 men and 905 women will be competing in the athletics events. Yesterday, World Athletics revealed the qualification system as well as the entry standards the athletes need to achieve during the set time standards for the 2024 Paris Games.

There will be two ways for the athletes to qualify for the Games. To determine the qualification, the French system has been followed. 50% of the athletes can qualify through the entry standards, whereas the remaining 50% of the athletes can qualify based on the world rankings. The French qualification system has been approved by the World Athletics council.

The Paris 2024 Olympics will have a total of 48 athletic events, including 23 women's events and 23 men's events. The two mixed events will be the 4x400-meter mixed relay and the 35km mixed team race walk.

The qualification and ranking period for the 10,000m, combined events, race walks, and relays will be from December 31, 2022 to June 30, 2024. For all other events except the marathon, the qualification and ranking period will be from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.

For the marathon, the qualification period will be from November 1, 2022 to April 30, 2024. Regarding marathons, any athlete ranked higher than the 65th ranked athlete on the filtered Quota place "Road to Paris" list on January 30, 2024 will be considered qualified, according to the press release by World Athletics.

After this, the remaining 20% of the quota will be finalized based on the same dual pathway qualification criteria. None of the qualified athletes will be displaced during the qualification period for the remaining 20%. Another important mention regarding marathons is that any national Olympic committee can decide to reallocate a quota spot to an unqualified athlete.

But the athlete has to achieve at least a time standard of 2:11:30 for men and 2:29:30 for women.

It was also announced that World Athletics will publish the official qualification monitoring tool (Road to Paris) on the Stats Zone of the World Athletics website in the latter part of 2023.

Entry standards for the athletics events at the 2024 Paris Olympics

The below-attached entry standards were approved by the World Athletics Council in November 2022.

Men	Event	Women
10.00	100m	11.07
20.16	200m	22.57
45.00	400m	50.95
1:44:70	800m	1:59:30
3:33.50 (3:50.40)	1500m (Mile)	4:02.50 (4:20.90)
13:05.00	5000m	14:52.00
27:00.00 (27:00)	10,000m	30:40.00
13.27	110m Hurdles / 100m Hurdles	12.77
48.70	400m Hurdles	54.85
8:15.00	3000m Steeplechase	9:23.00
2.33	High Jump	1.97
5.82	Pole Vault	4.73
8.27	Long Jump	6.86
17.22	Triple Jump	14.55
21.50	Shot Put	18.80
67.20	Discus Throw	64.50
78.20	Hammer Throw	74.00
85.50	Javelin Throw	64.00
8,460	Decathlon / Heptathlon	6,480
1:20:10	20km Race Walk	1:29:20
2:08:10	Marathon	2:26:50

What are the athletics events at the 2024 Paris Games?

The athletics events at the 2024 Paris will be held from August 2, 20224 to August 11, 2024. The list of events is as follows:

100m (women’s / men’s)
200m (women’s / men’s)
400m (women’s / men’s)
800m (women’s / men’s)
1500m (women’s / men’s)
5000m (women’s / men’s)
10,000m (women’s / men’s)
100m Hurdles (women’s)
110m Hurdles (men’s)
400m Hurdles (women’s / men’s)
3000m Steeplechase (women’s / men’s)
4 x 100m Relay (women’s / men’s)
4 x 400m Relay (women’s / men’s / mixed)
High Jump (women’s / men’s)
Pole Vault (women’s / men’s)
Long Jump (women’s / men’s)
Triple Jump (women’s / men’s)
Shot Put (women’s / men’s)
Discus Throw (women’s / men’s)
Hammer Throw (women’s / men’s)
Javelin Throw (women’s / men’s)
Heptathlon (women’s)
Decathlon (men’s)
20km Race Walk (women’s / men’s)
35km Team Race Walk (mixed)
Marathon (women’s / men’s): last weekend of the Olympic Games

Maximum number of athletes per event

The maximum number of athletes per athletics event at the 2024 Olympics is mentioned below.

Men	Event	Women
56	100m	56
48	200m	48
48	400m	48
48	800m	48
45	1500m	45
42	5000m	42
27	10,000m	27
40	110m Hurdles / 100m Hurdles	40
40	400m Hurdles	40
36	3000m Steeplechase	36
32	High Jump	32
32	Pole Vault	32
32	Long Jump	32
32	Triple Jump	32
32	Shot Put	32
32	Discus Throw	32
32	Hammer Throw	32
32	Javelin Throw	32
24	Decathlon / Heptathlon	24
48	20km Race Walk	48
80	Marathon	80

For the men's 4x100m relay and 4x400m meter relay, a total of 16 teams will be allowed to compete. For the Women's 4x100m relay and 4x400m relay, a total of 16 teams will compete.

For mixed events, 16 teams can compete in the 4x400-meter Mixed relay and 25 teams can compete in the 35km mixed team race walk.

Team Poland celebrates after winning the gold medal in the 4x400m Relay Mixed Final on day eight of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

For universality places, any NOC that has no male or female qualified athlete or relay team will be allowed to enter their best-ranked male or best-ranked female athlete in either the 100m, 800m, or marathon, according to World Athletics.

The unqualified entries in the 800-meter will be limited to three in each gender and subject to acceptance from World Athletics Technical Delegates based on the technical standard of the athlete.