The qualification system for artistic swimming at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games was officially released on January 7 by the International Olympic Committee.
In broad terms, nothing about the size or structure of the competition has changed from Paris 2024. There will again be 96 athlete quota places, with two events on the program: team and duet.
10 teams and 18 duets will make up the field in Los Angeles. Each team is composed of eight athletes, each duet of two, and for any country that qualifies a team, the duet athletes must be included within those eight team members. Exactly as it was in Paris.
One genuine change does appear right at the top of the document, and it concerns age eligibility. All athletes competing in LA must have been born on or before December 31, 2014. In other words, athletes need to turn 14 years old during the Olympic year. The minimum age requirement in previous cycles was 15.
Team qualification
10 teams will qualify for the Los Angeles Games, and one of those spots is already taken. As host country, the United States automatically qualifies a team.
Beyond that, the remaining places are allocated through a four-level priority system, which determines which competitions take precedence over others.
Priority 1: The highest priority is the 2027 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest. The top three teams at those championships, determined by the combined scores of their technical, free, and acrobatic routines, will qualify directly to LA 2028.
Priority 2: The second priority is the host country. Team USA’s automatic qualification also counts as the continental quota place for the Americas, which has consequences for the rest of the system.
Priority 3: The third priority consists of the continental championships held in 2027. This is the section that initially looks complicated, but is actually quite logical once you break it down. In theory, up to four teams can qualify through their continental championships. In practice, that number depends entirely on what happens in Budapest.
Any continent that already has a team qualified through Priority 1 will not receive an additional continental quota place. In addition, because the United States qualifies automatically as host under Priority 2, the Americas are also excluded from receiving a continental quota through this pathway.
Only continents that are not yet represented through Priorities 1 or 2 are eligible to qualify a team via continental championships.
The timing of competitions does not change this hierarchy. The qualification system explicitly states that if a continental championship is held before the 2027 World Championships, its results will only be taken into account after the quota places from Budapest have been allocated.
To put this into concrete terms, imagine the 2027 European Championships take place before Worlds and Spain wins them. If Spain then also finishes in the top three in Budapest, Spain qualifies through Priority 1 and simultaneously uses up Europe’s continental quota. Spain’s European title effectively becomes irrelevant for Olympic qualification purposes, and the second-ranked team at the European Championships does not inherit that place.
Another hypothetical: If none of the top three teams in Budapest come from Europe, then the highest-ranked team at the European Championships would earn the European continental quota. For example, if France were to win the European Championships but fail to place in the top three in Budapest, and no other European team reached that top three either, France would qualify for LA2028 through the continental route.
It works on paper, but it is a risky position to be in. Relying on a continental quota rather than a top-three finish at Worlds is not exactly the most comfortable strategy, and depends on a lot of “ifs”.
Nonetheless, there is still a safety net and a final opportunity to qualify through the fourth priority level, which we will discuss below.
As in the previous Olympic cycle, special provisions apply to continents that will not hold a continental championship in 2027. In those cases, the quota place is awarded to the highest-placed NOC from that continent at the Budapest World Championships. In the past, this has been applied to Africa and Oceania, who have not held continental championships.
If a continent is not represented at all in Budapest, its quota place is reallocated through the final qualification pathway.
Priority 4: The fourth and final priority for team qualification is the 2028 World Cup Super Final. Any remaining team quota places will be decided there, again based on combined scores from technical, free, and acrobatic routines.
Realistically, this could mean around four available spots, but the exact number will depend entirely on the outcomes in Budapest.
Once those places are awarded, the field of 10 Olympic teams is complete.
Duet qualification
Duet qualification is where the biggest change appears. The additional continental duet quotas that existed in previous cycles are gone.
Continental representation is now ensured solely through the 10 duets affiliated with the 10 qualified teams, covering all five continents. Beyond that, the remaining duet spots are distributed in a much more straightforward way.
Priority 1: As before, the 10 duets from the 10 qualified teams automatically earn Olympic quota places.
Priority 2: The next five duets qualify at the 2027 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest. These are the five highest-ranked duets based on combined technical and free routine scores that are not already qualified through team affiliation.
Priority 3: The final three duet quota places are awarded at the 2028 World Cup Super Final. Once again, combined technical and free routine scores determine the rankings, and the top three duets not already qualified through the previous pathways earn their tickets to Los Angeles.
And that’s it. Those three steps produce the full field of 18 Olympic duets.
You can find the full documentation on the IOC’s website.
While Olympic qualification officially begins in 2027, 2026 will be an important year in its own right. It will be the first real indicator of which teams are capable of contending for a top-three finish at Worlds, and which may already be heading toward riskier qualification scenarios.
All that’s left is a personal request: World Aquatics, please put the 2028 World Cup Super Final somewhere in Europe. I would very much like to attend without negotiating unpaid leave. Thank you.
ARTICLE BY CHRISTINA MARMET
Cover photo: Andrea Staccioli / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
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