World Ath­let­ics has an­nounced the in­tro­duc­tion of a “repechage round” which will de­but at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. This will see track ath­letes who com­pete in events rang­ing from 200m to 1,500m, in­clud­ing hur­dles, be­ing giv­en a sec­ond chance to qual­i­fy for the se­mi-fi­nals of their event.

This an­nounce­ment was made in Ju­ly 2022 by World Ath­let­ics and will dif­fer from the tra­di­tion­al au­to­mat­ic time qual­i­fiers, or “fastest losers” ad­vanc­ing to the se­mi-fi­nals. Es­sen­tial­ly some ath­letes will now com­pete in four rounds in­stead of three (round one, repechage round, se­mi-fi­nals and the fi­nal). The 100m events have a pre­lim­i­nary heat be­fore round one and the repechage was there­fore ex­clud­ed for these events.

This an­nounce­ment has led to nu­mer­ous ques­tions and calls for clar­i­fi­ca­tion, as there are con­cerns sur­round­ing the im­pact on re­cov­ery and per­for­mance, the like­li­hood of in­juries and the an­tic­i­pat­ed strain on sports prac­ti­tion­ers to fo­cus more en­er­gy and time on faster or more ef­fi­cient re­cov­ery and prepar­ing ath­letes for pos­si­bly more events.

If an ath­lete par­tic­i­pates in a 200m repechage round due to poor per­for­mance in the heats and makes it to the se­mi-fi­nals and the fi­nals, that ath­lete would have had to be pre­pared for four dif­fer­ent races, as op­posed to the three that are cus­tom­ary. What this means for the ath­lete is ex­po­sure to greater phys­i­o­log­i­cal stress and de­pend­ing on how the events are sched­uled, they may be ex­posed to mus­cle fa­tigue, poor re­cov­ery and an in­creased risk of in­juries.

For ath­letes com­pet­ing in the 1,500m events, this con­cern is mag­ni­fied, as it is a more de­mand­ing event and re­quires a longer re­cov­ery pe­ri­od. Will World Ath­let­ics strong­ly con­sid­er tim­ing be­tween these repechage rounds and the se­mi-fi­nals to give these ath­letes an equal op­por­tu­ni­ty at re­cov­ery, as for those who would have qual­i­fied for the se­mi-fi­nals from the heats? Is this a re­al sec­ond chance at medalling or just an in­creased chance of a ca­reer-end­ing in­jury? We wait to see how World Ath­let­ics will deal with this is­sue when sched­ul­ing events.

Mod­ern ath­let­ics has seen ath­letes com­pet­ing in two and even three events in one cham­pi­onship. For ex­am­ple, it is not un­com­mon for the re­lay teams to be com­prised of ath­letes who com­pet­ed in the sprints, or for per­sons to com­pete in both the 100m and 200m sprints. De­pend­ing on their per­for­mance in round one, these ath­letes will now have not just one, but sev­er­al ad­di­tion­al rounds when con­sid­ered across events. Will sched­ul­ing take this in­to ac­count? Over­work and in­jury once again be­come a con­cern. Is it pos­si­ble that the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the repechage round may force or­gan­i­sa­tions to lim­it ath­letes to one event on­ly.

An­oth­er ma­jor ques­tion that has not been ad­dressed is the con­cern re­gard­ing false starts; will ath­letes who false start al­so be giv­en a sec­ond op­por­tu­ni­ty in a repechage round to prove him or her­self? A false start is syn­ony­mous with a poor start and there­fore should be treat­ed sim­i­lar­ly. Al­so, whilst a rea­son is giv­en for the ex­clu­sion of the 100m, what is the rea­son for the 1,500m cut-off?

How will this ma­jor change be in­te­grat­ed by sports or­gan­i­sa­tions? The plan is to be im­ple­ment­ed in Paris 2024, which does not leave much time for or­gan­i­sa­tions, ath­letes and coach­es to con­duct tri­al runs to fig­ure out how this will all work and the im­pact it will have on ath­letes’ per­for­mance.

Sports prac­ti­tion­ers will al­so need to have first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence of what will be re­quired of the ath­letes and to fig­ure out the best strate­gies to mit­i­gate against in­jury should they find them­selves cov­er­ing ath­letes who will par­tic­i­pate in the repechage round. Many teams in our re­gion may on­ly have one phys­i­cal ther­a­pist/doc­tor as­signed to work with the team, so hav­ing these ad­di­tion­al rounds in­clud­ed for mul­ti­ple events may place sig­nif­i­cant pres­sure on al­ready over­worked staff.

Sports man­age­ment teams must be­gin to con­sid­er whether they will need to source ad­di­tion­al help, if at all even eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble, as they pre­pare for the 2024 Olympics.

The con­cept of the repechage round is not to­tal­ly new and is used in wrestling and taek­won­do at the Olympics. These sports are, how­ev­er, quite dif­fer­ent from track events and whilst there may be ap­plic­a­ble lessons from the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the repechage round for those events, there may be dif­fer­ent chal­lenges for track.

Where­as a repechage round might ben­e­fit an ath­lete psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and give them the op­por­tu­ni­ty of a sec­ond chance at prov­ing them­selves, there are mea­sures that must be put in place to en­sure that this im­ple­men­ta­tion pro­tects the well­be­ing of our ath­letes and the in­tegri­ty of the sport. The world of ath­let­ics waits with bat­ed breath for fur­ther up­dates from World Ath­let­ics about the in­tri­ca­cies of the repechage round im­ple­men­ta­tion and how it will ben­e­fit ath­let­ics.

Mau­rice Fish­er is a med­ical doc­tor who is pur­su­ing a mas­ter’s de­gree in Sports Med­i­cine at the UWI Fac­ul­ty of Sport.