Athletics is one of the most important showpiece events of the Olympic Games.

Here is the qualification process for Athletics…

You can check LA 2028 programme here.

You can check the qualification process for other Sports here.

Athletics at the LA 2028 Olympics

Where will Athletics take place?

Athletics events will take place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Dates for Competition:

Athletics events will take place between 15-24th July, 27th July, 29th & 30th July.

Let us look at the qualification procedure.

Events in Athletics at the LA Olympics: There will be a total of 48 events – 23 Women, 23 Men and 2 Mixed team events: 4x100m Mixed Relay, 4x400m Mixed Relay.

Number of Quota Places:

1810 athletes will qualify in Athletics. Following are the events along with number of entries per event in brackets.

Guidelines for Relay events are as follows:

How to Qualify:

Let us first look at individual events qualification:

Qualification will be done through 2 pathways: By meeting qualification standards and by World Ranking. As per World Athletics, 40% of athletes are expected to qualify through entry standards and the remaining 60% are expected to qualify through world rankings.

Should more athletes than the quota by event achieve the entry standard, qualification will be limited to those with the best performance in the qualification period, and within the quota number; thus, achieving the entry standard does not automatically guarantee a quota place. In this case, no athletes will be qualified by world rankings.

Qualification Period: For the marathon, the qualification and ranking period runs from 1 November 2026 to 30 April 2028. For the 10,000m, combined events, race walks and relays, the window is from 19 December 2026 to 18 June 2028. For all other events, the period runs from 19 June 2027 to 18 June 2028.

Qualification Process for RaceWalks:

The first 12placed athletes at the World Athletics Race Walking
Team Championships Hefei (CHN), which will take place on 9
April 2028 shall automatically qualify for the Half Marathon
Race Walk events at Olympic Games LA 2028. The remaining 36 places will be allocated via the World Rankings.

Qualification for Relay Events:

The top 14-placed nations at the 2028 World Athletics Relays will directly qualify for the LA 2028 Olympics. The remaining 2 spots will be given via World Rankings.

Universality Places: Universality places will be allocated through an application process.

India’s Chance of Qualification:

Given the recent performances, India should be hopeful of qualifying at least 20 athletes. The following athletes are definitely the ones to watch out for: Neeraj Chopra, Parul Chaudhary, Avinash Sable, Tejaswin Shankar, Murali Sreeshankar, Sarvesh Kushare, Jyothi Yarraji.

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