The cheers for France’s Anais Bourgoin in the 800-meter repechage on Saturday reached near ear-splitting levels. The new qualifying format in athletics, proving popular at the Paris Olympics, gave runners a second chance in the repechage after failing to advance out of the first round. This is a first in Olympic athletics history.
Bourgoin, with the winner in each of the four women’s 800 repechage heats securing spots in the semi-finals, held on to win hers by about a tenth of a second. The flag-waving crowd cheered as if she had won gold. “Last night I could not sleep, but I had a nice massage and was trying to think about something else,” Bourgoin said. “When you are in your bed you are thinking about that adrenaline at the stadium and you cannot sleep. It was difficult to wake up at six (a.m.) but when you are very hungry for the win, you can do it. “My feet hurt me a bit but when I heard the stadium I let (the pain) go and had to keep going. You have a lot of emotions when people scream your name,” she added.
World Athletics introduced repechage rounds – which translates to “fish out” or “to rescue” in French and has been used in other sports like rowing for years – for Paris in the 100/110 hurdles, 200m, 400m, 400m hurdles, 800m, and 1500m. Races historically included heats, semis, and finals, with the “fastest losers” in qualifying – runners who didn’t place high enough in their heats to advance but were among the fastest times of the non-qualifiers – advancing to the semis. Now, all runners who didn’t automatically clinch spots in the semi-finals by placing race again in a repechage round, with between two and six runners, depending on the distance, moving on. The first round of the women’s 800 was on Friday evening, making for a quick turnaround. “It’s certainly not easy, it really keeps you on your toes but it worked out for me because it got me through to the semi-finals,” Australia’s Abbey Caldwell said. “At the end of the day, it is going to make it harder and shorten that recovery but you’ve just got to take what you get,” she added.
