While the qualification from Rio 2016 and other previous editions relied on qualifying standards, Tokyo 2020 is primarily based on world ranking.
[5] The qualifying standards may be obtained in various meets during the given period approved by the World Athletics.
The qualifying period for the marathon and the 50 km race walk occurs from 1 January 2019 to 5 April 2020 and from 1 December 2020 to 31 May 2021 and the qualifying for the 10,000 m, 20 km race walk and combined events occurs from 1 January 2019 to 5 April 2020 and from 1 December 2020 to 29 June 2021, with the rest of the track and field events happening from 1 May 2019 to 5 April 2020 and from 1 December 2020 to 29 June 2021.
[3] On 6 April 2020, the World Athletics announced that the qualification period for the Games was suspended until 30 November 2020, in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
[6] In July 2020, World Athletics announced that the suspension period would be lifted for the road events (marathons and race walks) on 1 September 2020.
The top eight teams in each event at the 2019 World Championships in Athletics (held in Doha from 28 September to 6 October 2019) guarantee a spot on their respective NOCs for the Olympics.
Sweden only enters athletes good enough to reach at least the eighth position, based on an assessment by the Swedish NOC.
A tracking system of qualification is published by World Athletics: Road to 2020 Olympic Games.
This Road to Tokyo tool shows which athletes – subject to being officially selected by their NOC – have qualified to compete.
As this is a qualification monitoring tool, not an entry monitoring tool, it won't highlight which athletes have been officially selected by their NOC, but team announcements of many of the leading nations will be later published by World Athletics.
The qualification period for all stadium events finished on 29 June and the qualification system has now been finalised, showing that about 70% of the athletes in individual events have qualified by entry standard and 30% by world ranking position, while 101 universality places have been awarded.
But in those cases, regardless of the events’ quotas, any athlete with a qualification standard will still be eligible for selection to compete in Tokyo.
Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, said: "Olympic qualification processes are always a bit fraught because there's so much on the line for the athletes, but it's exciting to see the Olympic fields take shape as the Tokyo Games approach, and it's pleasing to see that the extended qualifying process we put in place when the Games were postponed last year ultimately allowed more athletes to reach the entry standards".
"With Tokyo 2020 less than a month away, and this last milestone complete, anticipation is growing rapidly for what shapes as an extraordinary competition ahead, based on some of the performances we have seen this year.
[3] The World Athletics Qualifying Standards are as follows:[9][3] 4 × 400 metres relay (mixed) Does not include indoor achievements or races with wind above 2.0 m/s.
Withdrawn after qualification by standard or ranking: Miguel Francis, Benjamin Azamati-Kwaku, Zharnel Hughes, Christophe Lemaitre, Mouhamadou Fall, Paulo André de Oliveira, Felipe Bardi dos Santos, Méba-Mickaël Zeze, Jeffrey John.
Athletes already qualified for the 100 m and 400 m events are automatically included in their respective relay teams.