Comply with reside protection of the 100m ultimate and extra observe and subject competitions on the 2024 Paris Olympics
It’s not usually {that a} new wrinkle is launched into Olympic sports activities, particularly one that may change into a whole game-changer for athletes. However, for these watching observe and subject this yr in Paris, they’re going to see simply that — the introduction of repechage rounds in particular races.
And it didn’t take lengthy for one U.S. athlete to place the brand new addition to strategic use. Right here’s what you must know in regards to the repechage rounds.
What’s a repechage spherical?
It’s a second likelihood for runners. In particular person races from the 200-meter sprint as much as the 1,500, in addition to the 110-meter and 400-meter hurdles, runners who didn’t robotically qualify out of their respective first spherical into the semifinals could have one other shot to make the semis. In layman’s phrases: It’s a mulligan.
Beforehand, semifinals in these races can be decided by the highest finishers in every first-round warmth in addition to the subsequent few quickest instances, no matter warmth.
Notably, the 100-meter sprint (the place Julien Alfred was topped the ladies’s champion already) doesn’t have a repechage spherical. Moreover, the longer distances and steeplechase don’t.
What does this imply for runners?
It permits elite runners who might need had a foul begin or struggled throughout a race, and thus missed the automated qualification, to have a second likelihood to maneuver onward by means of the rounds. Nevertheless, it additionally signifies that a few of the observe races have now moved from three rounds to 4 rounds, placing an additional pressure — each mentally and bodily — on athletes. However, it additionally signifies that each athlete working the 200 as much as the 1,500 is assured not less than two races on the Olympics.
Relying on the race, anyplace from two to 6 athletes from every repechage spherical will advance into the semifinal.
Why was this transformation made?
The change was introduced in July 2022 by World Athletics, the governing physique for worldwide observe and subject.
“After consulting with our athletes and broadcasters, we consider that is an innovation which can make development in these occasions extra easy for athletes and can construct anticipation for followers and broadcasters,” World Athletics president Sebastian Coe stated on the time of the announcement in a media launch. “The repechage rounds will give extra publicity to our sport in the course of the peak Olympic interval and shall be rigorously scheduled to make sure that each occasion on our Olympic programme retains its share of the highlight.”
Runners compete within the males’s 1,500-meter repechage spherical, a brand new second-chance spherical for many who didn’t qualify out of their heats, on Saturday on the Olympics. (Kevin Voigt / Getty Pictures)
When do the repechage rounds happen?
The primary repechage rounds occurred Saturday — within the girls’s 800-meter and the lads’s 1,500-meter. Six runners certified for the semifinals out of the repechage for every. The subsequent repechage rounds are Monday. Right here’s the total remaining schedule.
Monday
Ladies’s 400-meter hurdles: 4:50 a.m. ET
Males’s 400-meter: 5:20 a.m. ET
Ladies’s 200-meter: 6:50 a.m. ET
Tuesday
Males’s 110-meter hurdles: 4:50 a.m. ET
Ladies’s 400-meter: 5:20 a.m. ET
Males’s 400-meter hurdles: 6 a.m. ET
Males’s 200-meter: 6:30 a.m. ET
Wednesday
Ladies’s 1,500-meter: 6:45 a.m. ET
Thursday
Ladies’s 100-meter hurdles: 4:35 a.m. ET
Males’s 800-meter: 6 a.m. ET
For athletes that make it out of these repechage rounds, the turnaround is fast. The semifinals are the subsequent evening for many of these occasions. Within the girls’s 200-meter, morning repechage winners will race within the semifinals that evening.
Does this have strategic implications?
On Sunday, U.S. hurdler Freddie Crittenden pulled up instantly in his first-round warmth within the males’s 110-meter hurdles and calmly jogged to the end line in 18.27 seconds, practically 5 seconds off the chief. After the race, he instructed NBC’s Lewis Johnson that he did it on goal as a result of he’s been battling an damage and wished to avoid wasting his physique for the repechage spherical.
“It was an intentional alternative,” Crittenden stated. “Everybody will get by means of to the repechage. … So I made a decision to simply, not make an emotional alternative, make a wise alternative, give my physique time to recuperate a bit of bit from being aggravated, lean on my medical medical doctors, lean on God, and simply await the repechage spherical, come out right here and attempt to kill it within the repechage spherical.”
The highest three finishers in every warmth advance to the 100-meter semifinals, so had Crittenden tried and did not get within the prime three, he would’ve ended up within the repechage spherical anyway — however after taxing his physique. By saving himself, he’ll theoretically be racing towards a weaker subject, with the entire quickest racers already superior, whereas additionally doubtlessly sparing himself from one additional all-out effort.
(Photograph of U.S. hurdler Freddie Crittenden taking a light-weight stroll down the hurdles observe Sunday on the Olympics: Hannah Peters / Getty Pictures)