In a letter to National Olympic Committees on Friday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said the qualification of all events for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will conclude by June 29, 2021. The roster of all athletes who will participate in the Tokyo Olympic Games should be finalized by July 5, 18 days before the Games' opening ceremony kicks off.
This is the revised qualification deadline after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were pushed back a year until 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The IOC said the adapted qualification system will be finalized later this month with more details to follow.
"We understand that at this time these are unlikely to include the full details on the dates and locations of the specified events, recognizing that these will follow later as the impacts of COVID-19 and its related restrictions become clearer," the IOC said in the letter.
"We aim to finalize the adapted qualification systems by mid-April, with the details on specific events to follow when available."
The IOC advised the International Sports Federations (ISF) to stick to their original qualification systems where possible and to try to offer the same number of qualifications in the adapted system.
On the issue of sports such as badminton and weightlifting who use world rankings to define qualification, the IOC hoped ISF will protect the interest of athletes who prove to be potential Olympic competitor by the cut-off dates in 2020, but at the same time, also allow the best-performing athletes in 2021 to attend the Games.
It is a serious issue for sports like badminton where top 16 players automatically qualify for the Olympics. The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has frozen the World Rankings to be backdated to the week following when the last international tournament was played — the All England Open 2020.
The ranking lists issued on March 17, 2020, will serve as a basis for entry and seeding into the next international tournaments, on which, as stated by the BWF, there was no clarity when it will take place.
A right balance is what IOC hopes the ISF to strike so that the best athletes emerge at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
On March 25, the IOC made the official announcement to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games until the summer of 2021 following a conference call between the organization's President Thomas Bach and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
On March 30, the date to host the Games was confirmed to happen from 23 July to 8 August 2021, with the Paralympic Games to be celebrated from 24 August until 5 September 2021.
Until then, the qualification process has become the center of discussion.
Many Olympic sports, such as boxing, saw the vast majority of their qualifying tournaments either interrupted or cancelled due to the global health crisis.
Others, such as sailing however, already had 90 percent of their competitors qualified.
Athletes who had already qualified for the Games before they were postponed will keep their places when the showpiece takes place in 2021, as confirmed by Bach on March 29.
That takes up around 57 percent of the 11,000 scheduled participants for the Tokyo Olympics.
