By Javier Silas Omagor
World Athletics (WA), the body in charge of athletics in the world, has announced the qualification system and entry standards for World Championships 2023.
The Hungarian city of Budapest will play host to next year’s edition.
To qualify, athletes participating in individual and relay events respectively will now know the target times to attain so as to secure their selection into the championships.
This caters for track and field, marathon, half-marathon, relay and race walk, among other events, both for seniors and World U-20s.
For the purpose of qualification to Budapest 2023, whether by Entry or World Ranking, starting this month (August), World Athletics will only recognise results achieved at the following competitions.
§ Diamond League
§ Continental Tour
§ World Race Walking Tour
§ World Combined Events Tour
§ World Cross Country Tour
§ World Athletics Label Road Race
§ National Senior Championships subject to a specific application to be submitted to WA at least 30 days in advance.
These competitions must be hosted by the World Athletics Area Associations or its member states; of course, Uganda is one of them.
Qualification competitions must be authorised and conducted in conformity with World Athletics Rules and for which starting from January 1 an application has been submitted to WC competition desk.
The announcement specifies the number of runners required in every single event.
For example, 27 runners across the world will be entered to run in 10,000m finals of both men and women.
Up to 100 runners will be permitted to participate in the men and women marathon.
At the just-concluded 2022 edition in Eugene, Oregon in the US, Uganda managed a threefold medal haul.
Winners included Joshua Cheptegei (gold in 1,000m), Jacob Kiplimo (bronze in 10,000m ) and the 20 year old Oscar Chelimo who bagged a bronze in 5,000m finals.
This time round, female runners were not lucky to finish in the medal brackets, but this is a jinx they will singularly target at breaking in Budapest.
Cheptegei, Kiplimo and Chelimo will get in automatically (green card) and to try to defend their freshly won Oregon medals.
For the rest of the country’s athletes, the order of the day is toiling, striving and thriving throughout the season to dip under the target time in their respective events of speciality.
Selected events and qualifying times are as follows.
| Events | Men | Women |
| 100 meters | 10 seconds | 11 seconds, 08milliseconds |
| 200 meters | 20secs, 16milliseconds | 22 seconds, 60milliseconds |
| 400 meters | 45 seconds | 51seconds |
| 800 meters | 1min:44sec.70msec | 1min:59sec.80msec |
| 1500 meters | 3min:34sec.20msec | 4min:03sec.50msec |
| 5000 meters | 13min:07sec.20msec | 14min:57sec |
| 10000 meters | 27min:10sec | 30min:40sec |
| 3000 meters | 8min:15sec | 9min:23sec |
| Marathon 42Kilometers | 2hrs:09min.40sec | 2hrs:28min |
