By Alricardo Gallimore, Trackalerts.com writer
The 2015 World Championships is fast approaching and as is customary, the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) normally announced its entry standards for next summer’s World Championships slated for Beijing China.
This announcement was made on Tuesday November 19 and the standard times are available on the IAAF website. These entry standards are the times or distances in which Athletes would have to achieve in order to compete for their respective countries at the World Championships, which is slated for Beijing, China next summer.
Where a country has several athletes who achieve the set standard in a particular event, it would have to be that Countries responsibility to select their best athletes in a given event. The qualification period began in January 2014 and ends on August 10, 2015, twelve days before the actual start of the games.
Additionally, the IAAF have also released a new qualification system which would take effect for next year’s World Championships.
The IAAF on its website stated that, “The key element of the new system is that the IAAF shall establish the ideal number of athletes (and relay teams) to start in each event of the championships and shall ensure that such ideal numbers are met through a qualification system which, essentially, combines entry standards (only one standard) and invitations based on rankings,”.
This system has created some changes such as; eliminating the B standard from the entry list. This elimination they hope will ensure that a set amount of athletes (three) are selected using one standard with wild card entries/invitations.
Another change is that, with the introduction of the World Relays, Countries who have made the finals at this relay games, automatically qualifies for the World Championships along with eight (8) teams from top list. This new way of selecting the relay teams has eliminated the entry standard for this event.
