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What is a Repechage Round in the Olympics?
Paris 2024 brings with it a new wrinkle to track events: The repechage round.
What is the Repechage Round?
In semifinals, a certain number of top finishers in each heat qualify for the final round of an event. The events historically left a few slots available for top times across heats that did not secure automatic qualifying spots, but Paris 2024 debuts a new format that features an extra race.
Now, instead of additional final slots being awarded by semifinal times, an additional race, a repechage round, is staged. That race determines those who fill out the rest of the slots in the final.
This does a few things. One, it gives more competition to watch. Two, it may motivate top runners to give it their all in the semifinals to avoid having to race again. Three, it could (and has, in the case of one U.S. hurdler) create an opportunity for some athletes to gamble on a jogged-out semifinal, putting it all on the line in the repechage.
What does Repechage Mean?
It's a French word that translates to "second chance."
What Events Have a Repechage Round?
The following men's and women's events have a repechage round:
- All hurdles events
- 200m
- 400m
- 800m
- 1500m
Why Didn't 100m Have a Repechage Round?
The repechage round is only in effect for the track events 200m and above. So, on Saturday for the women's 100m event, and Sunday for the men's 100m event, the only way to qualify for the eight final spots was to be one of the two fastest in the semifinal qualifying heat, or one of the two fastest times across heats that didn't automatically qualify in the top two spots.
Instead of a repechage round, the 100m has a preliminary round before the first round.
What is a 'Lucky Loser'?
The 'Lucky Loser' was the nickname given to the finalist qualifiers of the previous format, where those who didn't automatically qualify still made the final based on their times in the semifinal heats.
Those Lucky Losers still exist for the 100m in 2024, but for the rest, they now need to win in with an additional performance.
Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.