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Freddie Crittenden took to the track on Sunday in the men’s 110m hurdles at Paris 2024 - but appeared to effectively jog his way to the finish line, finishing up to five seconds behind his rivals in the heat.
To put that into perspective, with Louis Francois Mendy of Senegal winning the heat in 13.31 seconds, it means Crittenden, at 18.27s, took almost 40 per cent longer to complete the distance.
With the Team USA star looking as though the approach was already part of the plan from the very start, it immediately raised concerns and questions over the reason for his slow race.
Naturally, he finished last out of the eight athletes in his heat, with only the top three making it through to the semi-finals automatically, with the next three fastest athletes also advancing. The rest? A second chance in the repechage, which has been introduced at these Games to most track events.
However, Crittenden spoke post-race to broadcasters and explained the reason for his slow heat - and it revealed a new mindset and approach to these Olympics which were not previously part of the equation in most track events.
“It was a weird thing, I had an easy pre-meet on Saturday, in my last rep [repetition] I aggravated my adductor a little bit, got some testing from the doctors,” he said.
“They said it's not an injury, just a lack of muscle activation, and I've been feeling some pain. I thought I'd come here, take it easy and thank god there was a repechage round, I had to come here, get through the line, I can look forward to the repechage on Tuesday, get top six and make it to the semi-final on the next day.
“I wanted to get here and make sure it didn't feel any worse and make it through and give it everything I've got on Tuesday.
“If there wasn't a repechage round, I probably would've just balls to the wall, run as hard as I could, crashed and burned, whatever happens.”
Crittenden’s point about the repechage - where athletes get an additional opportunity to compete and make the next round in their chosen event - means that this was essentially a tactical defeat to delay his real competitive action, allowing him further time for recovery.
Olympics rules state any athlete outside the top three of the heats in the 110m hurdles, and not one of the next three fastest athletes not automatically qualifying, can attempt the repechage - except those who do not start, finish or are disqualified.
As such, he needed to compete and complete the distance, which he did, but without jeopardising his fitness or ability to go full-throttle next time out.
Crittenden's USA teammate Grant Holloway set the fastest qualifying time with 13.01secs. Olympic champion Hansle Parchment, 34, avoided the repechage, despite a disappointing fifth place in heat three - where four athletes incredibly finished within nine-thousandths of a second of each other - due to claiming one of the three spots for the next fastest athletes not automatically qualified.
“I'm forcing everybody to meet the norm. It's an early morning, to do that [13.01secs] without having a day to get ready is impressive,” Holloway said after his stunning heat run. “Absolutely, I get nerves, this is the biggest stage, racing big guys like this [Olympic champion Hansle Parchment], who used to be my idol. You have to be on your A-game, the same thing happened in Tokyo. I came out hot but I wasn't able to achieve.”
Further lending credence to Crittenden’s approach was the sight of Yaqoub Alyouha failing to finish heat five after pulling up hurt, with the Kuwait athlete seen sitting in the middle of the track for several minutes before receiving medical help. As a DNF runner, he will not take part in the repechage.
