Swim Ireland Announces Paris 2024 Olympic Nomination Policies

Swimming World November 2021 - Q&A with Swim Ireland's National Performance Director Jon Rudd 2

Jon Rudd: Pic Courtesy: Swim Ireland

Swim Ireland Announces Paris 2024 Olympic Nomination Policies

Swim Ireland has announced the Paris 2024 Olympic nomination policies for swimming and diving, which have been approved by the Olympic Federation of Ireland.

There are three opportunities for individual event qualification through the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan this July, the World Championships in Doha, Qatar in February 2024 and the Irish Open Championships, currently set for May 2024.

Qualification for Fukuoka will take place from performances at the Irish Open Championships at the National Aquatic Centre from 1–5 April this year.

In relay swimming, World Aquatics (formerly known as FINA) have decreed that on this occasion, only the two World Championships can be used for relay qualification to the 2024 Games.

Swimming qualification for Paris is governed by World Aquatics who have set the Olympic Qualification Times (OQT) and the Olympic Consideration Times (OCT) for Paris.

Darragh Greene: Photo Courtesy: Swim Ireland

OQT’s are set from the top-14 times achieved at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games and 2022 World Championships in Budapest.

This level of qualification is set at the highest level to date for an Olympic Games and all nations are now tasked with the most challenging set of Olympic individual event qualification times ever published.

OCT’s have been set 0.5% outside each respective OQT, and in some cases are faster than the previous Tokyo Olympic Games qualifying times.

With the OCT set at such a high level, these standards would see such athletes have an ability to qualify for semi-final positions at recent World Championships or Olympic Games if repeated once present.

However, athletes may only attend an Olympic Games via an OCT if they are invited to do so by World Aquatics and the International Olympic Committee.

The worldwide number of invites is expected to be very low, as such invitations are only offered once all other athletes have been offered their places at the Games (those via OQT’s, those from Universality nations and those who are ‘relay only’ athletes).

In addition to this, World Aquatics have been allocated a lower number of overall athlete places for the 2024 Olympic Games than in previous times.

In diving, opportunities for individual and synchro qualification are available at the 2023 EOC European Games in Rzeszów and, as for swimming, the Fukuoka and Doha World Championships.

Worldwide, a maximum of 136 places are available in diving, with the European Games offering the first opportunity for qualification; only the gold medallists in Rzeszów from each Olympic event will secure a place for their nation on this occasion.

At the World Championships in Fukuoka, the top-12 individual event finishers and top-3 synchro event finishers in each Olympic discipline will secure places, with the final qualification opportunity taking place at the Doha World Championships in 2024, at which point the remaining places will be allocated based on the slots available to the sport at that point in time.

National Performance Director Jon Rudd said:

Jon Rudd – Photo Courtesy: Jon Rudd

“We’re in a very good place to be able to confirm our nomination route for the Olympic Games at what is a relatively early stage and be able to provide athletes with three distinct options to be able to achieve this.

“Utilising the World Championships as part of our qualification routes was important as we felt that we had to endorse such performances at these events as that is ultimately what we are looking for at a Games – evidence that an athlete can deliver in the international arena at the time that truly matters.

“In diving, the qualification events are directed by World Aquatics, but in swimming we have more flexibility. As such, we also felt that a qualification event on home soil was important for our athletes too. So, the opportunities are a good blend of this without attempting to qualify too frequently, which often compromises performances at the Games as a result.”

Rudd continued:

“In swimming, the OCT is now pitched at such a high level that we feel the same as many other leading nations do having now viewed them; if invites via an OCT performance come our way (bearing in mind that there will be so few of them across the world as a whole) , such an athlete would be at a level to be highly competitive at the Games.

“On that basis, if any such invites come from performances at our three nomination competitions, our inclination will be to accept them.

“There is no doubt that it is a tremendously busy and exciting period for swimming and diving, with two World Championships occurring within seven months of each other as part of a run-in to Paris, and there seems to be something worth keeping up to speed with almost every month.

“So – keep your eyes and ears peeled and join us for the ride!”

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