World Aquatics has offered SwimSwam with readability relating to the eligibility of swimmers chosen as relay-only athletes to race in extra occasions on the Olympic Video games.
Briefly: relay-only swimmers are invited as simply that, swimmers for relays.
The questions grew to become pertinent over the past two weeks with two huge items of reports. One is a World Aquatics letter to member federations foretelling restricted spots for Olympic Consideration Time (colloquially “B” commonplace) qualifiers on the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games.
The different is 23-year-old Penny Oleksiak, a 7-time Olympic medalist, who fought again via just a few years of damage to qualify for the Canadian Olympic Workforce as a member of the 400 free relay.
Oleksiak’s time of 53.66 left her .05 seconds away from the Olympic Qualifying Time (“A” commonplace), and whereas which means there’s an opportunity that there could be room for her within the Video games, the person invitation is just not assured.
Oleksiak mentioned after the race that she’s going to search for an Olympic qualifying meet to pursue the “A” commonplace in an occasion during which she was the 2016 Olympic co-champion with American Simone Manuel.
Oleksiak has been beneath the Olympic “A” commonplace at the very least 18 instances in her profession in official competitors, however not because the 2022 World Aquatics Championships (52.98), which is previous to the opening of the qualifying interval for Paris.
World Aquatics has confirmed that relay-only swimmers, which is Oleksiak’s present standing, at the very least till the tip of the qualifying interval in late June, are not eligible for added particular person occasions.
Many swim followers anticipated they’d (or ought to) be eligible on the idea that the bounds on participation are primarily based on the variety of athletes – a lot as was the outdated qualification system within the NCAA, for instance. However as a substitute, relay-only swimmers are solely eligible as relay swimmers except they’re additionally invited in a person occasion (which is sensible, as a result of in the event that they have been ready so as to add ‘elective’ particular person occasions, then they’d not be relay-only swimmers, by definition).
World Aquatics additionally clarified that swimmers with “A” requirements (OQT) may race different occasions during which they’ve a “B” commonplace (OCT), even when the “B” commonplace swim doesn’t get an invitation; and that swimmers with one invited “B” commonplace swim (OCT) can swim as much as one extra occasion during which they’ve a “B” commonplace (OCT), even when that second occasion isn’t invited.
In each circumstances, that’s inside context of the opposite qualification guidelines, reminiscent of solely permitting one swimmer per nation to compete in an occasion if that swimmer has solely the “B” commonplace.
The full and most present choice standards might be seen right here.