Paris 2024: Benjamin Azamati, Abdul-Rasheed Saminu pick 100m Olympic tickets via ranking

Ghanaian sprinters, Benjamin Azamati and Abdul-Rasheed Saminu, have qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games through the World Athletics Ranking System, after the period of qualification elapsed on June 30.

Azamati, 26, will be heading to his second Olympic Games, having competed at the Tokyo event in 2021.

This will be 22-year old Saminu’s first Olympic Games, where he will also be competing in the 200m, having qualified for that event through the entry standard.

Both athletes will also be competing as part of Ghana’s 4x100m relay team.

How They Qualified

There will be 56 athletes competing in the men’s 100m at the Paris Olympic Games.

Out of this number, 30 of them will be chosen through the entry standard, where an athlete is expected to run a minimum time of 10.00s to qualify. In the event where more than 3 athletes from a particular country make the mark, only the top 3 will be considered as each country is allowed to enter up to only 3 athletes per event.

The remaining 26 will be chosen from the next highest ranked 100m runners from among the list of those who do not make the qualification mark of 10.00s to make the total 56. This ranking excludes any athletes who may be placed higher on the world ranking but outside the top 3 of their country.

In that ranking, Azamati came through in the 39th position (world ranking 41st), while Saminu occupied the 54th position (world ranking 71st), putting both of them inside the 56 going to Paris.

The duo will join high jumper, Rose Yeboah, as Ghana’s 3 athletes that will be competing in individual events at the games.

The track and field events at the Paris Olympic Games will run from August 1-11, with the 100m event on Saturday August 3, 2024.