Sifan Hassan’s Olympic record of 2:22:55 would not be quick enough to meet the women’s marathon standard for Los Angeles 2028 – one of many demanding marks in the system World Athletics has just published.

World Athletics has published the qualification system for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, and the message is clear: qualifying is going to be tough.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the marathon. The women’s standard of 2:22:20 is faster than the 2:22:55 with which Sifan Hassan won gold in Paris, while the men’s mark of 2:05:00 is 86 seconds quicker than Tamirat Tola’s winning 2:06:26. The Paris races were run over a notoriously hilly course, but even so, those are daunting targets – and each is a minute faster than the marks set for next year’s World Championships in Beijing.

The full list of entry standards is below.

LA28 entry standards

*Places in the half-marathon race walk are decided through the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships and world rankings rather than a time standard.

Compared with Paris 2024, the bar has been raised almost across the board. Of the 40 men’s and women’s marks that can be compared directly – the race walks have no time standard this time – 32 are tougher, five are unchanged and only three have been eased.

The biggest increases are on the track. Men’s 5000m runners need 12:50.00, 15 seconds faster than the Paris mark of 13:05.00, while the women’s 5000m standard has come down by 18 seconds to 14:34.00. Women’s steeplechasers face 9:06.00 instead of 9:23.00 and the women’s 1500m mark is five seconds quicker at 3:57.50. The men’s 800m standard has dropped from 1:44.70 to 1:43.00, and the decathlon bar has risen by 190 points to 8650.

The field events are a more mixed picture. The men’s shot put (21.50m), discus (67.20m) and javelin (85.50m) standards are unchanged, as are the women’s high jump (1.97m) and hammer (74.00m). Only three marks have been eased: the men’s high jump by one centimetre to 2.32m, the women’s triple jump by five centimetres to 14.50m and the women’s javelin by 20 centimetres to 63.80m. At the other end of the scale, the women’s shot put standard has gone up by 50 centimetres to 19.30m.

A comparison of every mark with Paris 2024 is below.

LA28 entry standards compared with Paris 2024

Track changes are in seconds, apart from the marathon (minutes and seconds). Field-event changes are in metres and combined events in points. Race walks excluded. Paris 2024 figures from the World Athletics qualification system for that Games.

As has been the case for recent outdoor global championships, the system is based on a dual pathway, but the balance has shifted. Instead of the 50/50 split used for Paris, 40% of athletes are expected to qualify through entry standards and 60% through world rankings.

Hitting a standard will not necessarily be enough, either. If more athletes achieve the standard than there are places in an event, qualification will go to those with the best performances in the qualification period, and nobody in that event will qualify through the world rankings.

The clock is already ticking in the marathon, where the qualification and ranking period opened on November 1, 2026 and runs until April 30, 2028. For the 10,000m, combined events, race walks and relays the window runs from December 19, 2026 to June 18, 2028, while for all other events it is June 19, 2027 to June 18, 2028. Results from competitions count in full if their last day falls inside the relevant window, while results from national senior outdoor championships that start inside the window count if achieved no later than Thursday June 22.

The marathon has its own twists. The field is set at 70 places per race, down from 80 in Paris. Anyone ranked inside the top 55 on the filtered Road to LA list – which allows three athletes per national Olympic committee – on March 19, 2028 will be qualified, with the remaining 15 places then decided through the same dual pathway. The first five finishers at Platinum Label marathons during the qualification period will be treated as having achieved the standard, and national Olympic committees can reallocate a place at final entries to an unqualified athlete who has run at least 2:11:00 for men or 2:29:00 for women.

In the half-marathon race walk, the first 12 finishers at the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships in Hefei, China, on April 9, 2028 will qualify automatically, with the other 36 places decided by world rankings. In the relays, the first 14 nations at the World Athletics Relays in The Bahamas on April 22-23, 2028 will qualify, with teams getting a second chance on day two if they miss out on day one. The remaining teams will be selected from the relay performance list.

The standards were set using the qualification periods of the 2022, 2023 and 2025 World Championships and the 2024 Olympic Games as reference points, with top lists calculated at three athletes per country. World Athletics said trends show marathon times in an Olympic year are 30 to 60 seconds faster than forecast, and that was factored into the marathon marks.

The Los Angeles programme will include 23 men’s events, 23 women’s events and two mixed relays – the 4x100m mixed relay, making its Olympic debut, and the 4x400m mixed relay. Athletics runs from July 15-30, 2028. World Athletics will publish the Road to LA on its website in the latter part of 2027, and the next chance for fans to buy LA28 tickets will come in 2027 with first-come, first-served sales.