If 2026 Was 2027… Who Just Sealed a Place at LA28?

Even with the upcoming change in the clocks, we’re fully aware that we’re still only in the year 2026, and qualification for the LA28 Olympic Games is still a year away. But as we now know how Olympic qualification will work—the algorithm for assigning quota places was made public last February—and because for many national teams this year’s worlds were a dry run for 2027, perhaps now is a good time to run a quick thought experiment: If Qingdao 2026 was actually Oeiras 2027, who just earned a place for beach sprint’s Olympic debut? (And what can we learn for when qualification goes live next year?)

We can’t promise this is going to be a simple calculation. So this might be a good time for another cup of coffee.

First up is the USA. As host country, the USA gets automatic qualification as long as it shows up for both the Americas continental qualifier and the world championships. It checked both those boxes this year, so the USA would be in, with one men’s and one women’s spot. Go USA.

Next we should mention that two “universality places” will be given out by the International Olympic Committee, and these aren’t assigned via qualification. Countries have to write to the IOC and apply for them. However, we couldn’t find much more information on this process, even though the IOC stated that it would publish the full procedure in February 2026.

Now the interesting part. We should remind everyone first that athletes will theoretically double up at these Olympics, racing in the solo and mixed double. Although that does depend on whether their team secured both the men’s and women’s quota places—you need a teammate to race in a double—. Perhaps to slightly sidestep that issue, and to guarantee a bigger field of doubles, the IOC’s system first assigns 15 places (both men’s and women’s) to the mixed double.

The main qualification regatta is the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals, from which the six “highest placed eligible” doubles will be chosen. As we mentioned above, the USA would already be in, so we’ll ignore the American boat, which finished fifth at worlds this year. Congratulations Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, China and the Netherlands. You would win the full quota allocation.

We now need to go back in time, because although the results from worlds take priority, some spots are also available at continental regattas, and those regattas are likely to take place before worlds. (We’ll come back to this point later, since it has some interesting repercussions.) That is the case this year, except possibly with the African championships, which haven’t yet been held in 2026. For simplicity, here we’ll consider African results from 2025.

Every continent gets two more places, except Oceania, which gets just one. And we must ignore already qualified nations. Nice work Tunisia and Morocco (Africa), Peru and Argentina (Americas), Thailand and Vietnam (Asia), Australia (Oceania), and Portugal and Great Britain (Europe). Again, you would all get the full quota allocation.

Having assigned all mixed double spots, we turn to the solos. We’ll start with the women, then the men, and finally cross-reference the lists to see if any of them will also get to race in the mixed double. The number of spots assigned from worlds and the continental regattas follows the same logic as before, except this time we’re giving out just one women’s or men’s place. And the calculation gets progressively more confusing since we need to remember who is already in, and ignore them.

From worlds we would hand out women’s places to Austria, Estonia, Italy, Hungary, Canada and Brazil. And from the continents, we’d add places for South Africa and Egypt (Africa), Paraguay and El Salvador (Americas), Hong Kong and India (Asia), American Samoa (Oceania), and Finland and Latvia (Europe). You’d all be in.

Repeating the process for the men, from worlds we would have Brazil, Estonia, Switzerland, Finland, Croatia and Italy. And from elsewhere, Egypt and South Africa (Africa), Canada and Nicaragua (Americas), India and Chinese Taipei (Asia), Vanuatu (Oceania), and Turkey and Czechia (Europe). Nice work everyone.

Checking back, we can see that eight of those women’s and men’s solos quota places match up, meaning that Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, India, Italy and South Africa would all get to race in the mixed double. But also there are seven women and seven men who would compete in just the solos at LA28. That also means that from a possible field of 32 mixed doubles, we’d only have 24 in Los Angeles.

The big unknown, mentioned earlier, might be those universality places. Would the IOC assign both of these to the same country, adding in another mixed double to reach 25 in total? Or are they more likely to be split, guaranteeing that the field is less than 32, whomever might qualify. Or perhaps, even, the IOC could hand out places to some of the countries that only have a single athlete qualified, boosting the overall number of doubles?

More likely, and more fairly, those places might be offered up for bigger motivations than simply sports. We reported recently that the Ukrainian team was unable to travel to China because of the war that Russia and Belarus launched against their country back in 2022. Given everything they face, Ukrainian athletes might be worthy recipients of those spots.

But aside from the fact we expect less than 32 mixed doubles at LA28, what other insights can we take away from this thought experiment?

One is that there are major countries missing. Neither France nor New Zealand would have qualified for the Olympics this year. France finished fifth on the world championship medal table in 2025, and New Zealand was sixth. A big reason for this may be that neither attended their local continental regatta. Also, New Zealand’s Emma Twigg, one of the biggest names in rowing, has been recovering from an injury. But this does highlight the possibility that a big country could miss out.

An interesting question might lie around whether countries will prioritize the double over the solo. Austria is a good example of a country with a very strong athlete in the women’s solo (Magdalena Lobnig) but perhaps without a similarly ranked rower in the men’s solo, and thus with fewer options to qualify the mixed double. Do they risk the double in order to chase the full quota, or concentrate on a more-likely route to LA28 via the solo?

Figuring out how to play next year is ultimately going to be a challenge for coaches, and especially because of the fact figuring out who gets in will require a back-and-forth time warp from worlds to continental qualifiers, back to worlds, and then back to the continental regattas. (Theoretically, the actual dates of continental qualifiers haven’t yet been announced, but running them after worlds would be a bigger headache for countries trying to prepare for LA28.)

For example, this year, Canada could well have expected itself to be out of contention for any places following the Americas regatta and the solos events at worlds. But with teams ahead of it essentially eliminating themselves (by qualifying) later on in the mixed double, a 15th place women’s solo finish in Qingdao, China, and a 7th place men’s solo finish in Punta Leona, Costa Rica, elevates the Canadians to a full quota allocation. Fellow Americas nation Brazil had a similar route and the same outcome.

To see how each country “qualified” this year, view the tables below.