World Athletics Sets Out How Marathoners Can Qualify for LA28

Marathoners with their sights on Los Angeles now know what the road to the 2028 Olympic Games looks like, and the first day they can start down it is Nov. 1. World Athletics laid out the qualifying system for the LA28 marathons in a note sent to agents, which CITIUS Mag first reported on Wednesday, and the window stays open for 18 months, until April 30, 2028.

The entry standards will only arrive in December, once the World Athletics Council signs them off, so anyone racing a big marathon in November will be chasing a number nobody has written down yet.

There are three ways in:

• The entry standard, run on an eligible course during the window.
• Placing in the top five at a Platinum Label marathon in the window, which counts the same as hitting the standard.
• The world rankings, through World Athletics’ Road to LA list, which counts no more than three athletes per country.

World Athletics wants roughly 40 percent of each field to get in through the first two routes and the other 60 percent through the rankings. That leans harder on rankings than Paris did, when the plan was an even split, and it matches what the federation already uses for next year’s World Championships in Beijing. The Beijing standards are 2:06:00 for men and 2:23:20 for women. For Paris it was 2:08:10 and 2:26:50, and for Tokyo only 2:11:30 and 2:29:30, which gives a sense of how far the bar has moved in two Olympic cycles.

Even hitting the standard isn’t quite a guarantee, because if more runners reach it than there are places, only the fastest of them get in and the rankings route closes altogether. With just 70 places per race in Los Angeles, 10 fewer than in Paris, that scenario is easier to picture than it was four years ago.

Times only count on courses with a valid measurement certificate, issued by a World Athletics/AIMS measurer graded A or B and dated within five years of the race. For the standard, the finish also can’t sit more than 1 meter per kilometer below the start, which works out to roughly 138 feet (42 meters) over a marathon. A quick result on a net-downhill course still earns ranking points, just with a deduction that gets bigger the more the course drops.

The key dates:

• Nov. 1, 2026: the window opens
• December 2026: the World Athletics Council approves the entry standards
• March 19, 2028: the first 55 names on Road to LA are locked in
• March 25, 2028: U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, St. Louis
• April 30, 2028: the window closes
• July 30, 2028: the men’s Olympic marathon, on the final day of the Games

Anyone sitting inside the first 55 on March 19 is safe, and the last 15 places in each race are then handed out under the same mix of standards and rankings. In the Paris cycle that cut came on Jan. 30, 2024, and it protected 65 athletes. For Americans, the Olympic Trials in St. Louis come only six days later.

Countries can still send a runner who hasn’t qualified any of those ways, as long as that athlete has run 2:11:00 (men) or 2:29:00 (women) inside the window and their Olympic committee hands them one of the places it already holds. Those marks are 30 seconds quicker than the ones Paris asked for.

The window opens on the same Sunday as the New York City Marathon, a Platinum Label race, so a top-five finish in Central Park on Nov. 1 would already count as meeting the Olympic standard.