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World Athletics has bumped up automatic qualifying entries for the world championships in Beijing next year, exposing a severe lack of depth in the sport locally.Of the 44 individual events on the programme, there are only 10 in which South Africans have been better than the 2027 standards in recent years — in five men’s disciplines and five women’s.Of the remaining 34, 19 are tougher than South African records and one is bang on Khotso Mokoena’s 17.35m national triple jump mark from 2014. That’s nearly double the 11 South African records needed for the last showpiece at Tokyo 2025.In the other 14 disciplines, no active South Africans have achieved the qualifying standards during this decade at least.World Athletics said it designed the 2027 standards so only 40% of entries would come through automatic qualification while the rest would book their spots through world rankings.The good news for South Africa is that team size is unlikely to be significantly affected as a result of this. The squad numbered 49 in Tokyo last year and 36 in Budapest 2023.World Athletics’ allotments for each event have remained the same at 100 berths for the marathons, 56 for the 1,500m and 800m, 50 for the race walking events, 48 each for the three sprints, 42 for the 5,000m, 36 for field events and the 3,000m steeplechase, 27 for the 10,000m and 24 for the combined events.History shows most individual medallists come from those achieving the automatic criteria, but not exclusively — javelin thrower Jo-Ane du Plessis qualified for Paris 2024 on world rankings and won Olympic silver.The standards highlight the country’s strong and weak spots in track and field.South Africa’s strongest event is the men’s 100m where Akani Simbine, Gift Leotlela, Shaun Maswanganyi and Bayanda Walaza have all been under the 9.95sec criterion in the past three years.Then comes the 200m (20.07) with Sinesipho Dambile, who recently went 19.77, Wayde van Niekerk and Maswanganyi, and the 400m (44.45) with Zakithi Nene, Lythe Pillay and Van Niekerk.These numbers confirm the class of the South African men’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams, which have already qualified for Beijing by winning silver medals at World Relays in Gaborone earlier this month. The mixed 4x400m team has also qualified.Jovan van Vuuren is the only long-jumper to have gone further than 8.25m in the past few years, though Cheswill Johnson and Luvo Manyonga have been there previously.For the women, Du Plessis (javelin), Prudence Sekgodiso (800m), Marioné Fourie (100m hurdles), Glenrose Xaba (marathon) and Zeney Geldenhuys (400m hurdles) are the only competitors to have achieved qualifying standards in recent times.Simbine has been in qualification territory on many occasions, Nene eight times, Dambile five, Leotlela three times, Maswanganyi three times (once in the 100m and twice in the 200m), Pillay twice and Walaza, Gelant and Van Vuuren once each.Van Niekerk, the 400m world record-holder, has also been a frequent visitor, but in the past three years he’s done it five times in the 400m and once in the 200m.Fourie has run 12.60 or better on six occasions, Du Plessis has thrown further than 63.40m on three occasions and Sekgodiso has been below 1min 57.50sec three times. For Xaba (2:23:20) and Geldenhuys (54.00), it’s once each.National records will be required for automatic entry in the women’s 100m, 1,500m (men’s and women’s), 5,000m (men’s and women’s), 10,000m (men’s and women’s), 3,000m steeplechase (men’s and women’s), women’s pole vault, triple jump (men’s and women’s), women’s shot put, women’s hammer throw, decathlon and heptathlon and the newly created half-marathon and marathon race walks (men’s and women’s).For the 2025 world championships the automatic qualifying standards required 11 South African records, nine for women (10,000m, 3,000SC, pole vault, triple jump, shot put, hammer throw, heptathlon and the two race walks) and two for men (decathlon and 35km race walk).For most track and field events the Beijing 2027 qualifying window opens on August 23 this year and closes on August 22 next year. The exceptions are the marathons, which began on November 3 2025 and end on May 2 2027, and the 10,000m and the two race walks (February 3 2026 to August 22 2027).
