Two days ago, on May 6, the Athletic Federation announced that Hugo Catrileo had secured his qualification for the Olympic Games. Thus, he joined Carlos Díaz as a representative of the marathon that will take place on August 10 in the streets of Paris. However, This publication is no longer on the organization’s official account.
What happened in the last hours? The medium ‘Tamytelocuenta’ reported that there are “70 athletes classified with the minimum mark met, whose classification period closed last Sunday.” However, he adds that “Another 11 athletes were added due to universality criteria.” That is, Catrileo went from 71st to 82nd in the ranking. From being the leader in the classification by score to being second on the waiting list.
Catrileo’s message on his Instagram
The Chilean athlete made his statement on social networks: “The World Athletics thing is really unusual (to say the least),” he began. “Today I woke up to the news that they prefer to take athletes who have never even run a marathon.”
In the aforementioned publication, Catrileo denounced a series of irregularities. Among them, that World Athletics would not have respected the established deadline (January 30) for the closing of 80% places in the world ranking (Road to Paris): “It is no coincidence that he went from the Pan American Games directly to another preparation (Houston Marathon) in 12 weeks and that he had much less training. “If I had known from the beginning that they were not going to comply (…) I would have liked to recover better from Santiago 2023 to spend more time with my family.”
“World Athletics has been talking about classification by score for five years and today they left out the 11 athletes who deserve to be on that path. It would be good for the new entrants to go, but behind the 80 already classified with merit,” he added.
Does Catrileo have a chance to qualify?
‘Tamytelocuenta’ explains that the 11 places incorporated “correspond to countries that do not yet have men qualified for the Olympic Games and could use it to register a runner in that discipline.” That is, two National Olympic Committees would have to give up this quota so that Hugo Catrileo can enter Paris 2024.
He confirmed it himself: “On May 12, the official list of 80 participants who confirm their participation will be released, and yes, I am at the top of the waiting list, but What about the other 10 remaining athletes? For now I continue training. Just as I understood the joy that people had with my Pan American medal more than myself, now I am more upset by the people around me than by myself.”
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