Tokyo Olympics 2021: New deadline for Olympic qualification period announced by IOC

The new deadline for the qualification period for the postponed Tokyo Olympics has been set to June 29, 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Friday. The chief body also added that the individual international federations of each sport would, however, retain full discretion for defining their own respective deadlines and qualification process.

"The new qualification period deadline is June 29, 2021 and IFs can define their own qualification period deadlines should the deadline be prior to this date,” said the IOC in a letter addressed to the National Olympic Committees (NOC), as per a report by IANS.

The qualification systems should be finalised “by mid-April”, as the IOC hopes, with details on specific events to follow.

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“The priority remains to reflect, where possible, the allocation method/pathway of the original qualification systems for each sport. This principle encourages IFs to follow a like-for-like approach by replacing those lost opportunities that were allocating quota with the same number of events,” the IOC said.

In sports that have age group-based classifications, the IOC is willing to extend the criteria in the case of those athletes who had qualified for the 2020 Olympics.

“The only exception will be if the IF establishes that the one-year relaxation of the upper age limit represents a safety and/or medical risk for athletes. Regarding the eligibility criteria for the lower age limit, if any, the IOC recognises the full authority of IFs to assess the eligibility of those athletes who are not eligible in July 2020 but meet the lower age limit in 2021,” it said.

The Tokyo Games, originally scheduled to be held from July 24 to August 9 this year, was postponed by a full year due to the global outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The new dates for the Tokyo Games were announced to be July 23-August 8, 2021.