If you thought the men’s 100m final was a close finish, then this men’s 110m hurdles race takes the biscuit. Noah Lyles won gold on Sunday by five-thousandths of a second, but in Tuesday’s second repechage heat at the Stade de France, the margin was even tighter. The trio of Rafael Pereira of Brazil, France’s Raphael Mohamed, and Algeria’s Amine Bouanani finished almost perfectly in sync, needing a photo finish to determine a winner. Pereira was the eventual winner with a time of 13.54 seconds. Remarkably, he finished 0.002 seconds ahead of the second-placed Raphael Mohamed, who also booked his spot in the semifinals. Even more remarkably, it was heartbreak for Bouanani as he missed out on a spot in the semifinals by one thousandth of a second. It was a chaotic race even before the start, with multiple false starts – Kazakhstan’s David Yefremov was disqualified as a result – and the starter's gun appearing to break too. It wasn’t the only extremely tight 110m hurdles repechage heat, with the third also coming down to a photo finish. This time, France’s Wilhem Belocian advanced to the semifinals ahead of Japan’s Shunya Takayama by just five-thousandths of a second.
