British Swimming has today published revisions to its Marathon Swimming selection policy for Tokyo 2020, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic reshaping the build up to the Olympic Games.
The IOC and FINA have confirmed that all named places from the 2019 FINA World Open Water Championships in Gwangju (top 10 finishers) will be honoured, and so the PLG felt the British 2020 Marathon Olympic Games Selection Policy should be upheld as much as possible, as this is consistent with the recent FINA and IOC decisions.
Given the revisions to the Olympic dates will mirror when the Games would have taken place in 2020, the Great Britain team shall be selected using the same criteria, at the Olympic qualification event, which was set for 30th/31st May 2020, but will now take place in 2021.
Of the changes, National Performance Director Chris Spice, commented:
“Our Performance Leadership Group (PLG), in conjunction with the British Olympic Association (BOA) have reviewed the original policy in response to the postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games, which was announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on the 24th March. The PLG felt the 2020 Marathon Olympic Games Selection Policy should continue to operate, where possible, in line with the FINA and IOC decisions.
“Selections for the Olympic Qualification event have already been made and given there have been no changes to the principles of the FINA and IOC qualification process, these selections remain and the four athletes already selected for the event on 30th/31st May 2020 (Jack Burnell, Hector Pardoe, Alice Dearing and Danielle Huskisson) will compete at the rescheduled event in 2021.”
At the time of writing, it is expected that the Olympic Games
Marathon Swimming events will now take place on 4th and 5th August 2021,
although this will be confirmed when the IOC announce the full aquatics
schedule in due course.
To view the original policy and the addendum please click here.