How To Qualify For The 2028 Olympic Marathon Revealed & Explained

So basically, World Athletics has said that the qualification window for the 2028 LA Olympic Marathon is, is going to run from November 1st, 2026, just a couple days from now, through April 30th, 2028.

And that there will be 70 quota spots per gender, which is down 10 each, down from the 80 that they had in each in Paris 2024. the most important part to this whole entire announcement is the the time entry standards so the qualifying time that everyone will be after that was not part of this comms that went out because that is still need to be finalized voted on and approved by the world athletics council which will meet in december 2026 we'll come back to that in a sec so um As we expected, athletes will have multiple paths to qualify for the 2028 Summer Games.

You can hit the entry standard, which has not been revealed yet, and that's one way.

If you finish top five at a platinum-label marathon, that will fall into the same bucket as hitting the entry standard, and World Athletics' goal is to get 40% of the fields via entry standard.

The problem is that's a moving target because everyone's getting faster.

We see that just year over year.

Number two way to get in is via the world rankings, and that's where we are your shepherds to guide you through just sort of that whole process.

They want 60% of the field to qualify through the world rankings during the rankings period, which is why these standards get tougher and tougher each time out.

I tried to find to see if the Road to LA tool is up and running on the World Athletics website.

Couldn't quite find it yet, so I don't think that link is live, but that is going to be essentially Preet and I's homepage over the next 18 months.

Now, let's peel back another layer here.

If you meet the entry standard...

It doesn't guarantee an Olympic spot.

So if more athletes meet the entry standard, then there are quota places available.

That's to say, say, for example, 80, 85 men run under, I'm throwing this out there, 205.

Only those with the best performances will qualify, leaving no places for athletes to qualify through the rankings.

Now, this is tougher because they need to put this in writing, although it's a crazy scenario because each country is limited to three athletes.

So essentially we're thinking we need a lot of countries to have a lot of guys running under 205, and that's not something – We see it's heavily Kenya, Ethiopia that's yielding a lot of time qualifiers.

And so a bulk of the people will be coming through the rankings.

Now, a key date, and this is new, is March 19th, 2028. athletes who are ranked in the top 55 on the road to LA quota list.

And that's after, you know, it's three per country will be considered qualified and cannot be displaced.

The final 15 places will be filled afterwards using the same criteria.

So that's March 19th.

That is six days before the 2028 us Olympic marathon trials scheduled for March 25th in St. Louis.

That's important because when we look at the rankings on March 19th, 2028, if there are three Americans, men or women, three American men, three American women ranked in the top 55, then We can all breathe a sigh of relief and know that all three spots on both sides have been unlocked for the United States before the trials, which is not something that we had in 2024.

So basically, World Athletics has said that the qualification window for the 2028 LA Olympic Marathon is, is going to run from November 1st, 2026, just a couple days from now, through April 30th, 2028.

And that there will be 70 quota spots per gender, which is down 10 each, down from the 80 that they had in each in Paris 2024. the most important part to this whole entire announcement is the the time entry standards so the qualifying time that everyone will be after that was not part of this comms that went out because that is still need to be finalized voted on and approved by the world athletics council which will meet in december 2026 we'll come back to that in a sec so um As we expected, athletes will have multiple paths to qualify for the 2028 Summer Games.

You can hit the entry standard, which has not been revealed yet, and that's one way.

If you finish top five at a platinum-label marathon, that will fall into the same bucket as hitting the entry standard, and World Athletics' goal is to get 40% of the fields via entry standard.

The problem is that's a moving target because everyone's getting faster.

We see that just year over year.

Number two way to get in is via the world rankings, and that's where we are your shepherds to guide you through just sort of that whole process.

They want 60% of the field to qualify through the world rankings during the rankings period, which is why these standards get tougher and tougher each time out.

I tried to find to see if the Road to LA tool is up and running on the World Athletics website.

Couldn't quite find it yet, so I don't think that link is live, but that is going to be essentially Preet and I's homepage over the next 18 months.

Now, let's peel back another layer here.

If you meet the entry standard...

It doesn't guarantee an Olympic spot.

So if more athletes meet the entry standard, then there are quota places available.

That's to say, say, for example, 80, 85 men run under, I'm throwing this out there, 205.

Only those with the best performances will qualify, leaving no places for athletes to qualify through the rankings.

Now, this is tougher because they need to put this in writing, although it's a crazy scenario because each country is limited to three athletes.

So essentially we're thinking we need a lot of countries to have a lot of guys running under 205, and that's not something – We see it's heavily Kenya, Ethiopia that's yielding a lot of time qualifiers.

And so a bulk of the people will be coming through the rankings.

Now, a key date, and this is new, is March 19th, 2028. athletes who are ranked in the top 55 on the road to LA quota list.

And that's after, you know, it's three per country will be considered qualified and cannot be displaced.

The final 15 places will be filled afterwards using the same criteria.

So that's March 19th.

That is six days before the 2028 us Olympic marathon trials scheduled for March 25th in St. Louis.

That's important because when we look at the rankings on March 19th, 2028, if there are three Americans, men or women, three American men, three American women ranked in the top 55, then We can all breathe a sigh of relief and know that all three spots on both sides have been unlocked for the United States before the trials, which is not something that we had in 2024.