Sally Pearson: ‘Eye-opening‘ new athletics rule brings ‘drama’ at Paris Olympics

A new rule at the Olympics athletics events is sure to divide athletes and fans and produce high drama in Paris, writes Sally Pearson.

The repechage round is new at the Paris Olympics.

The repechage round.

It's a new concept in athletics that has been applied to a handful of events such as the 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 100m/110m hurdles and the 400m hurdles.

All the athletes that do not automatically qualify into the semi-final round of these said events through their heats will have another chance to qualify through this repechage round.

To put it simply everyone in these events will be guaranteed to run twice at the Olympics. Some athletes will love this and some will absolutely hate it.

This new addition will best suit the athletes that have had an off day and don’t get the best start to their campaign, thankfully for them they will get a second chance but for the ones who have lifted for the event on the day and scored themselves an automatic spot might be a bit sour about it.

Originally if you have an off day and don’t make it through to the next round, then your Olympic campaign is over.

The repechage means runners in many events get a go twice. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

So far on day one of this new rule being applied has been eye opening.

I’m seeing more desperation than ever from the athletes. In the men’s 1500m heats it was rough and tumble all the way, athletes bumping and pushing each other to fight their way to put themselves in the automatic qualifying spot.

It reminds me of racing in the hurdles where you would sometimes feel an athlete’s arm invade your lane which would either knock you back or put you off your game completely.

I loved it. It made me excited. I loved when athletes tried to put me off, because I knew it was never going work.

For our three Australian men in the 1500m heats on the first day of the athletics have seen all of them relegated to this new repechage round.

Ollie Hoare, the 2022 Commonwealth Games Champion and Stewart McSweyn the Tokyo Olympic finalist, both of whom I thought would be a guarantee to ease through the heats are now heading back to the village to do some soul searching before coming back out and hopefully runing the race of their lives to progress to the semi finals.

The new rule could save Ollie Hoare after the Aussie was off the pace in the 1500m. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

World Athletics have been playing with some new rules to certain events in hopes to make the sport more appealing to our television viewers.

Some, I’m not in agreement with.

For example changing the take-off board in the Long Jump to the take-off “zone”.

This new change seems like a few steps back all the way to the Little Athletics days where you would see the six-year-old kid take off from a sandy matted zone.

Sports have to find a way to lift their game to keep the interest of the viewers.

I think what athletics has done with this new repechage round is such a great leap forward.

The more drama the better, and that’s exactly what the audience want to see, they want to see the drama, they want to see close racing and they want to see athletes fighting hard for every position.

Stewart McSweyn will be after a better run second time around. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Sally Pearson is one of Australia’s greatest Olympic athletes. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

That is what makes sport great. It’s exciting. If we didn’t have this recipe for success then people will turn off.

It’s just the start of the athletics program and I’m already excited to see the stories, the journey, the heartaches, the surprises, the celebrations and of course just an amazing array of athletes from 200 nations coming together to battle it out either on the road or in the oval office.

Gold won’t necessarily be everyone’s ultimate goal but striving to be the best athlete they can will be.

It will certainly be an entertaining show for all of us watching the athletics over the next 10 days.

Sally Pearson is an Olympic gold medallist and one of Australia’s greatest ever track and field athletes. The former world champ is writing exclusively with news.com.au during the Paris Olympics

Originally published as Sally Pearson: ‘Eye-opening‘ new athletics rule brings ‘drama’ at Paris Olympics