Despite passing the Olympic qualifying limit, some Swedish athletes, with the middle-distance athlete Lovisa Lindh as the most noticed example, were not selected for the Olympics in Tokyo this summer.
In July 2021, the Athletics Association issued an open letter to SOK in which they wrote that the criteria should be changed.
Now, eight special sports federations, led by athletics, have submitted a motion to SOK's AGM in April, where they demand a thorough investigation of the Olympic competition.
- Swedish athletics has one of the world's toughest criteria and qualifying limits for participation in the Olympics.
It is something that affects both our elite, our coaches and our sports in general, says the athletics association's chairman Johan Storåkers.
What could a concrete change be?
- That you change the top eight criterion to the individual athletes' international selection criteria to be indicative.
We want SOK to carefully analyze current selection criteria and evaluate how it works in other countries.
According to the motion, SOK has, via a digital meeting on December 7, themselves announced that they will present a proposal to the Annual General Meeting that the selection criteria be reviewed.
Something that is confirmed by SOK's chairman Mats Årjes.
“It is positive that the exercisers want the same thing.
A decision to review the withdrawal criteria has already been made ", he writes in a text message to SVT Sport.