Pages

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

US Olympic trials produce a dead heat result in the womens 100m

Last weekend for the first time ever, the US Olympic trials for women in the 100m final produced a dead heat result. Both Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh crossed the finish line in joint third place in exactly 11.068 seconds. With timing equipment measuring thousandths of a second and cameras taking photos at a rate of 3,000 frames per second, the judges could not decide which of the runner's torso had cross the line first. A dead heat has never been seen before, even in the event's long history.

On Sunday evening, USATF spokeswoman Jill Geer announced the new procedure for breaking a third-place tie in the 100 and any running event in the future for which a U.S. national or Olympic team is selected. Unless one athlete declines her position, the runners will decide between a run-off and a coin toss. Either way, the decision must be made and a team finalised by the end of the trials on Sunday, July 1. Officials will work with the two and their coach, Bobby Kersee, to decide what to do next.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please note that all comments must be moderated before they appear on the site. All spam and nearly anything with a link in it just gets deleted.