Kiran Pahal in action© X (Twitter)
Indian quarter-miler Kiran Pahal finished sixth in heat 1 of the women’s 400m repechage round at the Paris 2024 Olympics and failed her place in the semi-finals on Tuesday. Pahal clocked 52.59s in the repechage round, a time slower than her 52.51s finish in the first round. The 24-year-old did not secure a semifinal as only the top athletes in each heat, along with the two best in repechage overall, advanced. At Paris 2024, a repechage round introduced for all individual track events from 200m to 1500m (including hurdles). The new format covers a total of six different distances in both men’s and women’s races, which include four rounds instead of the usual three.
In the new repechage format, athletes who do not qualify by placing in round one heats, will have a second chance to qualify for the semi-finals by participating in repechage heats.
This new repechage format will replace the former system, when athletes would advance through fastest times, sometimes known as ‘lucky losers’ in addition to the top placings in the heats.
Kiran punched her ticket for Paris in the women’s 400m during the Inter-State Athletics in June. She ran a blistering pace to clock 50.92 seconds to better the Paris Olympic Games qualification time of 50.95 on the opening day of the event.
She has also emerged as the second-fastest Indian female 400m runner of all time. Notably, Hima Das holds the national record of 50.79 seconds clocked in 2018.
Kiran is the first Indian female quarter-miler to have qualified for the Olympic Games after a gap of eight years since Nirmal Sheoran (Haryana) qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games.
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