The umbrella organization of athletics, World Athletics, will henceforth count nine athletes instead of eight in the finals of sprints and hurdles and 800 meters. The decision is fresh from the oven.
At the World Championships in Doha in the fall of 2019, an unusual 110-meter hurdles final race was run in the sense that nine athletes were included instead of the normal eight. Barbados Shane Brathwaite the performance in the semi-finals was ruined through no fault of the man’s own, so the judges’ council cleared the USA Grant Holloway to win him an extra spot on the indoor track for the final.
Starting next year, nine athletes will be the standard number in the finals of the prestigious championships in 100, 200, 400 and 800 meters, as well as in the hurdles and 400 meter hurdles. There will also be nine teams in the relay finals. The standard number on each trip mentioned has been eight.
– The decision is fresh from the oven, it has just been approved by the board of World Athletics (the international umbrella organization of athletics) and prepared by the competition committee of the federation before that. The federation’s athletes committee has also given it the green light, said an influential member of the World Athletics board and competition committee Antti Pihlakoski on Wednesday.
Through protests
So far, a ninth runner has been able to enter the final through the handling of protest situations, but it has been exceptional. In the future, the eight-runner value race final at the above-mentioned distances will be an exception.
– The starting point is always nine runners or relay teams, but if the prestigious races were to be contested in a stadium where there are only eight tracks, the place is of course empty. However, running tracks like that are quite rare in value competition stadiums, says Pihlakoski.
The new rule does not yet affect next summer’s value events, i.e. the European Championships in Rome and the Olympic Games in Paris.
– It will come into force at the 2025 World Cup in Tokyo. There are nine tracks in the city’s magnificent Olympic stadium, says Pihlakoski.
Quality does not suffer
According to the WA board member, there is nothing more dramatic behind the rule change than wanting to give more athletes the opportunity to get to the biggest forum.
– The trips in question are of such a high standard that some really tough athletes have been left out of the finals. The quality of the supply will in no way suffer from this decision.
In the future, the athletes’ journey to the final will look the same as it does now, in that two athletes will continue directly from each of the three semi-finals, but based on the times, three runners will reach the final instead of two. In the messages, three teams from the preliminaries go directly to the finals, but instead of the current two, three more based on times.