Lausanne: Athletes who had already qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics before the Games were postponed won't have to compete in the qualifiers for the 2021 Games. Around 57 per cent of the 11,000 athletes scheduled to participate in the Tokyo Games had already sealed their berths in the Games before International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Japanese government pushed the Games back to 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday.
The IOC and 32 international sports governing bodies held a teleconference on Thursday where it was decided to respect the qualification process.
“Thomas Bach (the IOC President) first explained the reasons for the postponement of the Games, then said that the athletes qualified for Tokyo 2020 would automatically be qualified for 2021,” one of the participants said in a video conference call.
“One of the main subjects was to know when and how to organise the qualifications.
“In some federations, many sportsmen and sportswomen are not qualified and it takes at least three months for the Olympic Games to organise them," he participant further added.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games were scheduled to start on July 24, but after a telephonic discussion between Bach and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a historic joint decision was taken for the first postponement of an Olympics in peacetime.
Many Olympic sports, such as boxing, saw the vast majority of their qualifying tournaments either interrupted or cancelled due to the global health situation.
Others, such as sailing, however, already had 90% of their competitors qualified.
“The allocated quotas remain allocated,” confirmed another participant in Thursday's meeting.
