There’s a new round of races for most individual track events at the Olympics this year.
It’s called the repechage — pronounced rep-eh-shazh –— and it loosely translates in French to “to fish out” or “second chance."
Track athletes competing in the following events now get an extra round –— if they need it — to reach their event’s semifinals: men’s and women’s 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m and hurdles events.
In the previous setup, the top finishers by place in each heat would automatically move on to the semifinal, and the runners with the top times among those who did not qualify would fill out the remaining spots in the semi. That latter group has been lovingly dubbed the “lucky losers.”
Now, with the repechage round, the runners who do not automatically advance to the semis will instead participate in a second race to qualify. Depending on the event, anywhere from two to six runners move on from the repechage round to fill out the semifinal field, and fans are treated to four rounds of the event instead of three. This guarantees that all competitors in these events will compete in a minimum of two races at the Olympics.
Notably, the men's and women's 100m are repechage-free, as both formats instead have a preliminary round, which operates as a sort of play-in round prior to Round 1, which features automatic qualifiers.
The repechage is a new wrinkle to track and field’s presence at the Olympics, but other sports like wrestling, rowing, judo and track cycling have used variations of the second-chance round in their respective Olympic competitions.