The Swedish Olympic Committee, SOK, demands that an athlete has achieved results and shown such form that they are judged to be able to compete for at least twelfth place at the Olympic Games, the so-called top 12 criterion. Therefore, it is not enough to clear the international qualification limits.
Therefore, SOK refrained from sending Swedish athletes to last summer's Olympic Games in Paris, despite being internationally qualified, in six different events.
Athletics expert A Lennart Julin has made a study that shows that athletes from 36 countries performed worse than the Swedes in the six events, but they got Olympic places that Sweden did not utilize.
"Shaking their heads"
There is no country in the world that did what Sweden did in the men's 3,000 meters steeplechase. We had four who were qualified, so we were forced to choose three of them since you cannot send more in the same event, and Sweden sends zero. The whole world is just shaking their heads, he says to TV4 and means that it is a "judicial murder".
Swedish athletics federation captain Kajsa Bergqvist wants to see changes in the requirements.
That they (SOK) should see the unreasonable in the current selection procedure, we do not want to quarrel with SOK and I do not think SOK is doing well either from having a running conflict that flares up every four years, says she to the channel.
"Has an assignment"
The committee's sports director, Fredrik Joulamo, believes that there is room for self-examination – but that it is still important that the top 12 requirement exists.
We have an assignment and in the assignment, it says that Olympic selections should have medals as a goal, says he to TV4.
If you show with results beforehand that you are top 12 with Olympic counting, you can have a good day and challenge for Olympic medals.
