Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 28, 2020: The Badminton World Federation has announced updated qualifying regulations for the Olympic and Paralympic Games scheduled to take place in Tokyo next year.
The priority was to ensure a fair solution to the disrupted qualification system in order to qualify players for the postponed Games.
Olympic Games
All ranking points earned at tournaments completed during the original Olympic - and Paralympic - qualification period will be maintained under the Race to Tokyo ranking list.
An extended Olympic qualification period will be introduced from Week 1-17 in 2021 and includes the select number of tournaments that were postponed, cancelled or suspended due to COVID-19.
Tournaments rescheduled for the end of 2020 outlined in the revamped BWF Tournament Calendar 2020 released last week will not count towards qualification, only the 2021 editions of each tournament.
Such eligible tournaments within this new qualifying period should preferably take place in the same corresponding week from 2020 to 2021.
If this is not possible, BWF will allow sanctioning on another date within Week 1-17 in 2021 subject to approval.
Players from China and Hong Kong, China will be eligible to earn points from the 2021 Badminton Asia Team Championships because they were unable to participate in the 2020 Badminton Asia Team Championships in Manila due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
A revised BWF Tournament Calendar 2021 with the actual dates for these eligible tournaments will be revealed later.
Paralympic Games
Only one tournament within the original Paralympic qualification period was cancelled due to COVID-19 – the Spanish Para Badminton International 2020. It has now been included in the adjusted qualification system within a period from 1 January to 28 March 2021.
Source: www.bwfbadminton.org