Şevket F. ERBAY

The athletics governing body World Athletics (then IAAF) introduced the world rankings-based qualification system during a Council meeting in Doha six months before the 2019 World Championships, which were held in the same city. A press release said the decision had been made after extensive consultation with "key stakeholders," that were not clearly stated.

Since then, the inequality between the superpowers and the vulnerable small nations has increased enormously, which has damaged the athletics' brand as the most celebrated Olympic sport globally. Before that fundamental change, universality quotas, reserved for the smallest nations (not geographically but athletics effectively), were reduced to one for each country instead of two. World Aquatics still uses double quota for universality, but their athletics counterparts cut some 70-80 humble spots from the humbled nations. To what end? In order to feed the strongest teams to satisfy greedy stakeholders.

So, how can we clearly accuse the governing body? The indicators and the current situation proved it very clearly: the newly established system is working for the giants—not for the underdogs. Here are the significant changes we found in the Olympic quotas from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.  

TOP NATIONS:

2016 – 566/2314 athletes (%24.4)

2024 – 649/2074 athletes (%31.2)

We formed a group of athletics superpowers or the largest teams at the championships. They're traditionally the most represented nations in every global event and, of course, the most successful ones. These are the United States, Jamaica, France, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, China, and Poland (Russia was normally included in this group, but they're excluded in our focused period for obvious reasons).

The group has amassed a representation of 566 athletes in the 2016 Olympics—24.4 per cent of all athletics participation figures. The same group have increased their combined representation to 649 in provisional Paris entries—an increase of almost seven per cent.

CLASS 2:

2016 – 471/2314 athletes (%20.3)

2024 – 486/2074 athletes (%23.4)

The second tier of our subjective specification belongs to nations including Nigeria, the Netherlands, Ethiopia, Cuba, Spain, Kenya, Japan, Australia, Canada, and Brazil. The group is interestingly mixed with several regional powers and fast-rising global powers such as the Netherlands. The 10-strong division also benefited from the new system, as it has collected dropped spots from the bottom nations and increased their share by more than three per cent.

In combination, the 18 strongest nations now have almost 55 per cent of the athletes in the competition - which is not fair, especially under the traditional values of the Olympics.  

BOTTOM NATIONS (up to 3 representers):

2016 - 204 athletes (% 8.7)

2024 – 138 athletes (% 6.6)

Under the brutal new rankings system - which compulsorily demands more payment per person in the qualification process, the bottom universality places nations suffer the most. Before the change, the 100 nations could use a couple of quotas, one male and one female. Now, they're forced to choose only one. At the Rio Olympics, 100 nations have sent 204 representatives to the Games. However, the same group (almost 1.5 billion in population) will have only 138 spots in the Paris 2024 start lists - which means their share will have shrunk to 6.6 per cent.

The trend is formed now, and it will get worse in future games unless we take precautions. If we care about athletics' globality, we should embrace its unrivalled universality and versatility worldwide. Some measures to this aim include:

1. Scrapping or (if not possible) revising world ranking system to make it more fair.

2. Financially and technically supporting the athletes from underprivileged nations through global sponsors. Encouraging them in order for "closing the gap".

3. Establish high-class meets in Africa and Asia, such as the well-suited Gaborone Meet in Botswana.

4. More global commercial inclusion of African, Asian or South American stars.