Losing to win: The controversial loophole that made Olympic athletes lose on purpose

The Olympics are the biggest athletics stage and a (for many athletes) once-in-a-lifetime shot to prove yourself in front of billions of people that you are the best in the world. This year, however, it wasn't really a once-in-a-lifetime shot.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games saw the introduction of the repechage round, brought in by World Athletics, which sees athletes who have run last in heats get a second shot at finals qualification.

We saw it with Australian hurdler Michelle Jenneke, who had a disastrous run, tripping over two hurdles to finish well behind the rest of the pack – and in a completely different lane to the one she started in. But because she simply finished the race, she earned a shot at redemption in the repechage round.

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While you can argue about deserved second chances, such as in Jenneke’s case, where it got murky was the likes of Freddie Crittenden. The American deliberately lost his heat in order to save himself for the repechage round.

In this round, Crittenden, who came to Paris as a favourite in the hurdles, faced a weaker group of athletes for his shot at finals qualification. He would win the repechage race with a time of 13.42, as covered by the Olympics' official site.

Prior to his heat, Crittenden was struggling with a slight injury in his leg, so with the repechage round in mind, he opted to not push himself and risk aggravating his injury. 

"It was either get top three or everyone gets through to the repechage. Every athlete has a chance to race in repechage," he said following the race, as reported by the Independent.

"So I decided to just not make an emotional choice, make a smart choice. Give my body time to recover a little bit from being aggravated. Lean on my medical doctors. Lean on God. And just wait for repechage round."

The repechage round more or less exists as a 'best of the rest' type of field, and we didn't expect to see those coming through from this stage to really challenge for the gold. But all that changed thanks to Crittenden’s tactic.

A tactic that divided fans and experts alike. NBC Sports labeled it as a "200 IQ move", while fans on social media called it out for going against the Olympic spirit.

Crittenden came second in his semifinal – narrowly missing out on a first place finish with a time of 13.23 to Rasheed Broadbell's 13.21. In the final he finished 6th, with a time of 13.32, missing out on a medal. Has his move changed the Games forever?

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