What do you do when you overhaul a qualification system that has drawn criticism for being unfair to both athletes and national federations.
Well, if you’re a member of World Athletics and we’re talking about the qualification system for next year’s World Championships in Beijing, it seems you’re doubling down on your efforts.
This is, at least, a reasonable conclusion one can reach. Having already restricted the international competition calendar in determining qualifying performances, which can only be accepted if achieved in bona fide competition in accordance with international rules – there is certainly nothing controversial about that – the IAAF has now decided that the list of approved competitions should be significantly reduced.
To quickly recap, Western Australia has established a permit system under which major world competitions and some other competitions – World Athletics Series meetings, Diamond League Finals and DL meetings, district championships, etc. – are operated under a World Athletics permit, and most other competitions operate under some sort of national permit. All sanctioned meetings can be found in the World Athletics Calendar.
At the same time, the two-level A and B performance qualification standard has been replaced by a single standard. This standard was generally higher than the previous A standard. Entry quotas for each event were set with the aim of having half of the quota athletes reach the automatic qualifying criterion and the remaining half through a classification based on performance in a number (five, in most events) of meetings.
Ranking points were based on performance level, which is the same across all levels and positions. Assignment points were higher, and deeper, depending on the level of competition. For example, the DL meeting had higher and deeper scores than the National Permits meeting.
It was quickly pointed out that not all athletes around the world have equal opportunities to reach top level meets. The late British international athletics commentator and statistician Peter Matthews expressed his reservations about ever creating a satisfactory ranking system, given that athletes around the world do not have equal access to high-scoring competitions, and said the system’s potential impact on domestic competitions.
It is a matter of assessing whether these reservations have been substantiated in practice. I think they did, but perhaps not to the point where it would require a major adjustment. Having performance standards at all generally favors those who can reach the top level of competition, and bear the costs of getting there (cost is a big factor here). The IAAF continued to take a benign stance towards approving permits for top-ranked meetings around the world.
Until this latest renovation, that is. The World Athletics Council decided to raise the criteria for automatic qualification and significantly reduce the number and type of places where these criteria can be achieved. Instead of 50-50 – half the places are taken by automatic standard qualifiers, and the rest by top-ranked athletes – it is now 40-60.
In practice, athletes who achieved this standard seemed to dominate entries in many events. The trend was stronger in the middle distance events where automatic qualifiers filled almost all of the quota positions in some of them. That’s all well and good, but the obvious question to ask is if you can’t predict 50-50 accurately, how can you be sure of a 40-60 prediction. We’re dealing with relatively small numbers here – all it takes is one extra super-fast 800, for example, and your expectation will be dashed.
But changing automatic qualifications is not the change that will have the biggest impact. Not only has WA tightened the standards at almost every event, it has also ruled that the standards can only be met at meetings in Category C and above.
At this point we have to qualify what that means. Track and field news He helpfully advises that “Category C and above includes the Western Australian matches you would expect: the Diamond League plus the Continental Tour at all three levels (Gold, Silver, Bronze). Also the major games (All-Africa, Asia, Commonwealth, Pan-American, European, South American) and some non-major regional tournaments (think European Team Champions and the like).”
what no included? Categories D, E and F which, in Australian terms, means pretty much all of our domestic season other than the national championships, the Melbourne meet (Continental Tour gold) and – this year, anyway – the Perth, Hobart and Adelaide meets (CT bronze), and the Senior 10,000 at the Zatopek meet (presumably national titles again this year).
Internal competition? No (not in event management, anyway). Ramona throws? no. WA is supposed to be allowed to continue city arena-type competitions when appropriate, but niche venues like Ramona are on hold unless approved and granted a permit a few months ago. But just throwing the discus in what is essentially a paddock? Forget it.
All US NCAA system meetings are also over regarding automobile standards. The only exception is national championships. Likewise special interest groups such as the British Millers Club and the Victorian Millers Club.
Performance at these meetings will still count for classification points, but not for accepted car standards. With the frequent desire to simplify the sport to make it more understandable to the average fan, good luck trying to explain why a world record doesn’t automatically qualify a world record breaker for the next World Championships/Olympics.
Footnote 1: If I’m using the drop-down tools correctly, there were 7,023 clearance meetings across all categories listed in the 2025 World Athletics Calendar. The number in Category C and above was 783.
Footnote 2: I cited Track & Field News which has an analysis on its general home page by editor Sieg Lindstrom that is worth reading (on Trackandfieldnews.com), as is Tim McGrath’s analysis from an Australian perspective (on insideathletics.com.au)
