National sprinter Marc Louis will be heading to the Paris Olympics after receiving a universality invite from World Athletics. - LIANHE ZAOBAO
SINGAPORE: National sprinter Marc Louis is set to make his Olympic debut at the July 26-Aug 11 Paris Games after the 21-year-old’s universality spot was confirmed by World Athletics (WA) on Wednesday (July 10).
With sprint queen Shanti Pereira having qualified for the women’s 200m at Paris 2024, Singapore is allowed to enter its best-ranked male athlete in the 100m, 800m or marathon – based on results between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024 – through the universality quota if no one has qualified outright.
Singapore Athletics said on its website that its athletes’ performances are ranked using percentile under WA’s scoring table, with the universality nomination going to the athlete who has a result closer to the Olympics entry standard.
Louis’ 100m national record of 10.27sec is just 7.5 per cent off the Olympic entry standard of 10sec.
In the last two years, no one has lowered the national records in the 800m (1:50.56) and marathon (2hr 22min 59sec), which are more than 12 per cent off the Olympic entry standards of 1:44.70 and 2:08:10 respectively.
Louis has been competing in a series of meets in Europe since winning the century sprint at the Singapore Open in 10.36sec in April.
A month before that, he broke the 60m indoor national record with a 6.69sec effort at the World Athletics Indoor Championships, eclipsing Gary Yeo’s 6.71sec mark from 2012.
In May 2023, he won the 100m silver at the Cambodia SEA Games, improving on the bronze he clinched on his Games debut in Hanoi a year earlier. He also helped the 4x100m relay team win back-to-back bronzes.
Four months later, he lowered U.K. Shyam’s longstanding 100m national record of 10.37sec by 0.10sec at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
Singapore will be represented by 23 athletes across 11 sports at the Paris Games. - The Straits Times/ANN
