Olympic Qualifying Update

London 2012 Olympics Advertisement/AP Images

Tucker gives us the Olympic qualifying update.


by Tucker Warner

Qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics has gone on since early 2010, in some sports, but it is just now reaching the final stretch. With the events scheduled to start in late July, the best athletes from around the world are making their final push, to either make a qualifying time, to win or place in a tournament, or get a certain place in a race, in order to qualify.

I’ll be covering the qualifying events for the next few months, so I’d like to give you a rundown of how this column will typically look. Olympic qualifying is a complex and often confusing system, so I’ll try to clearly explain the different ways to qualify for each sport, as necessary.  Although I would like to, I probably will not be able to name every athlete who qualifies in a given week. What I will do, though, is update you on results from the qualifying events, inform you about the best, most notable, and/or most interesting athletes in the various events, and try to give you a bit of prediction on upcoming events, especially the Olympic games themselves.

In cycling, the women’s road race gained another competitor in Hsiao Mei-Yu from Chinese Taipei, who earned her spot in London by winning the Asian Cycling Championship. She out-sprinted 2008 Olympian, Gu Sun-Geun, at the end to win by a narrow margin. This will be her first appearance in the Olympics, and although she is not expected to be a medal contender, it is possible she could surprise some people and finish higher than expected in the field of 67.

The FINA Diving World Cup began on Monday, and many athletes have already qualified. In the men’s three-meter synchronized springboard event, two-man teams from Malaysia, Ukraine, Canada, and the United States qualified. The team from Ukraine is, in my opinion, the strongest of this group, but do not expect them to pull off an upset of the juggernauts from China and Russia. In the women’s ten-meter platform event, seven athletes qualified, three of whom also participated in the same event in the 2008 Beijing Olympics: Christin Steuer (Germany), Mai Nakagawa (Japan), and Haley Ishimatu (United States). As the favorites for this event have already qualified, these seven will likely not be in medal contention, but expect one or two of them to make the group of twelve divers that will compete in the final.


In field hockey, a qualifying tournament is underway in both the men’s and women’s divisions. In the men’s division, Singapore, Italy, Poland, France, Canada, and India are competing in a round robin tournament, and only the winner receives a spot in the Olympics. The latter four teams have emerged as frontrunners, with India, currently ranked tenth in the world, yet to lose a game. In the women’s tournament, India, South Africa, Italy, Ukraine, Canada, and Poland are competing for one spot, with India and South Africa, ranked twelfth and thirteenth in the world, respectively, having already emerged as the favorites to win. The match between these two teams, on February 22, will likely decide the event, so that will be one to watch out for.

In shooting, the European Continental Championships in 10-meter events were held last week. As the qualified athletes, who will compete in four 10-meter events in the Olympics (two men’s events, two women’s events), are just filling expected quotas and none have placed particularly highly in reputable competitions as of yet, there is not much information to learn about them, but more will come out as the Opening Ceremony approaches.


More qualification events are to be held in the upcoming week, so be sure to come back for an update on the results of some in-progress tournaments, as well as events that have yet to begin. In the meantime, if you have any questions, comments, or dissenting opinions, feel free to share them in the comment box, or talk to me on Twitter at @twarner50.