Qualifying for the Olympics in the 50's of Stroke

Earlier this year, swimming fans celebrated the addition of the 50m stroke events (butterfly, backstroke, and breaststroke) to the 2028 LA Olympics, aligning the Olympic and World Championship event programs and finally giving the fastest swimmers in the world their due.

However, World Aquatics’ newly announced Olympic qualifying system has changed everything.

The new qualification involves a World Cup series in October 2027, where the top 6 in each 50m event qualify (one stroke per World Cup stop). A qualification event so confusing, that World Aquatics had to make a video for people to understand what the heck is going on.

Alternatively, swimmers qualifying in other events (aka the 100’s of stroke) will get a softer time standard so they can also compete in the 50s, risking domination by existing medalists.

This setup disadvantages pure 50m sprinters and poses logistical challenges for nations funding travel and camps, especially non-European ones. If you swim all 3 events, you’ll need to be in Europe for 5-6 weeks minimum!

Swimming’s athlete quota is down yet again this quad and “universality” demands dozens of spots to be saved for the world’s slowest swimmers.

Universality spots are invitations extended to developing nations that have no swimmers who achieved the official A or B qualifying times.

For example, in Paris, there were 21 guys that couldn’t break 25 in the 50 Free while 18 women couldn’t break 30.

Which begs the ultimate question…

Do we want to see the world’s fastest swimmers compete against each other or not?