Dead Heat

Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix did something that is so rare that USA Track & Field did not even have a policy in place for such an event.  Yes, I am talking about the dead heat that occurred in the women’s 100m final.  As I write this Jeneba Tarmoh has conceded her potential spot in this event, which to me is sad. 

This is a black eye for the sport of track and field at a time when the whole country could have seen one of the greatest things to happen to the sport.  I do not think this is on Jeneba Tarmoh, this is on USA Track & Field.  However, Tarmoh should have known that the results that are posted are always unofficial.  

Here is where things began to go bad to worse.  If there were a policy in place, nothing would be made of this but because there was no policy, we have a big deal.  The results that the officials can up with were in my mind not the best; coin flip, run off, or concede the spot.  Now the coin flip is just absurd, the run off should have been the first option given to the athletes and more time should have been given to athletes to recover and prepare for the potential run off.  I personal would have liked to have seen Felix conceded the spot because she did make it in the 200m and would have been on the 4x100m relay as well.  Nevertheless, this did not happen so we have this mess.  I hope the Olympic committee is paying attention.

How can this be prevented in the future…..well first off MAKE POLICY.  I would suggest that like the field events the semi-final(1) and the prelims(2) heat times are the first tie breakers.  If this was the policy here would have been the results:

Athlete	Semi time	Prelim time
Felix	11.23	11.19
Tarmoh	11.10	11.16

Tarmoh would have been declared the winner before this got out of hand and the USATF would have had an answer when they said they wanted one in the first place.  If the athletes had identical times in those heats then it goes to a run off. 

My hope is that USATF learns from this and sets a policy that makes sense.