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When you hold a competition with the best athletes from around the world, it can be tough to balance the “best athletes” part with the ” from around the world” part.
Every sport handles it differently since even though the Olympics is a big event governed by the IOC, each sport has its own governing body that sets the rules for their own events. Every country has their own organizations for each sport as well.
In the interest of giving the host country someone to cheer for, the host team usually automatically gets a spot in any team sports, regardless of whether they could have qualified on their own merits or not.
For individual sports, a country or region might be given X number of spots at the Olympic event. Those countries/regions will then often hold a tournament before the Olympics and give the spots to the top X finishers. You’ll often see athletes who grew up in a country that dominates a particular sport choose to compete for another country they can claim citizenship in because being the seventh best American won’t get you into an Olympic event, but being the second best Bulgarian will.
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