As resolutions go, Jeneba Tarmoh's decision to withdraw from her scheduled runoff against Allyson Felix was about as anticlimactic as it gets. Thus ended one of the most captivating episodes in U.
He did. But I've found solace in the fact that the only entity screwed harder by this whole affair than the common man was USA Track and Field. Let's start by recalling that this sorry charade could have been avoided from the outset if USATF had tie-breaking procedures in place. For the two women, the runoff could hardly have had higher stakes: The winner would win the right to run the race at the Olympics, the loser would be left out.
The runoff became necessary when Tarmoh and Felix tied for third with identical The US can field only three sprinters in the meters at the London Games. I understand that with this decision I am no longer running the m dash in the Olympic Games and will be an alternate for the event. The question is: Why did Tarmoh back out of the runoff — especially when it appears that she had more to lose from such a move than did Felix? While Tarmoh has qualified to run in the meter relay in London, the was her last chance to qualify for an individual event.
Meanwhile, Felix has already qualified for the meters, in which she is a two-time Olympic silver medalist and a gold-medal favorite. For her, the runoff, while important, was also potentially another chance to sustain an injury that could put her out of her signature event.
In other words, Tarmoh needed the Felix would have been an American star at the Games with or without it. She feels like it's everybody against her. It is easy to understand her disappointment. After the June 23 race, the chief photo finish judge Roger Jennings declared Tarmoh the third-place winner. She was given a medal. She held a press conference. Jennings had overruled the unofficial results and declared that Tarmoh and Felix had, in fact, tied see video.
To someone who took a flag-waving victory lap around the track at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. No matter the sense of injustice, however, it is a curious response. If she believes USATF was out of line, some sort of appeal would seem the more likely response — and perhaps that is coming. Otherwise, the times are the times and the deadlock needs to be resolved.
It gave the runners the option of a coin flip, a runoff, or one sprinter ceding the slot to the other. But in swimming, which does have a protocol for resolving ties, the protocol is a swim-off. So it's no great injustice to insist on a runoff if the sprinters actually tied. It is not unprecedented for the results of close races to change well after the finish line is crossed. During the Beijing Olympics, US sprinter Wallace Spearmon was taking a celebratory lap around the track after apparently winning bronze, only to learn he had been disqualified for stepping out of his lane.
More than a half-hour later, the apparent silver medalist, Churandy Martina of the Netherlands Antilles, was also disqualified.
Tarmoh, not surprisingly, sees her case differently, and on Monday, by refusing to settle the matter on the track, she deprived USATF of its prime-time moment. Already a subscriber? Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.
Felix won the in a blazing The would be her only chance to make the Olympic team in an individual event. She says she went back to her hotel room after the , knowing that a decision on the would come the next day. She began reading the Internet for the first time in a week and found the SI. The words had been published three days earlier, but Tarmoh hadn't seen them.
She called Holland. Then she called Felix and they talked. There's something fishy about this. Tarmoh said Felix seemed intrigued, and said she wanted to talk again, which they did. You have to decide, run or concede. If both athletes refuse to declare a preference regarding the method between a run off and coin toss in regards to how the tie is broken, the tie will be broken by coin toss. There seems to be no provision to break the tie if one athlete refuses to express a choice, although that could, in one reading, be construed as Option B.
Tarmoh recalls being intimidated by the prevailing feeling in the room and by the personalities around her. I didn't want Allyson to be upset at me. I never wanted to run, but there I was in that room and at some point I just decided, you know what, I'll just go and do it.
You guys have a lot of money invested. They were saying they had a TV schedule in the middle of the swimming trials.
So I'll just go and run. USATF officials convened a 2 p. But Tarmoh was already in crisis. I wasn't at peace with it. When I step on the track to run, I pray. God, give me the strength to run this race. Let your will be done. And then I put it all on the line. That's what I did in the meters, the first time. This time, for the runoff, I couldn't find anything. I prayed for that spirit and there was nothing, I was just flat. I wasn't running away from running, I'm a competitor. I can't explain it.
I needed to find a way to cope. When I decided not to run, I found peace. In a sense, that is the reality of professional sport, even a minor sport like track and field. Felix is training to win four medals. Tarmoh actually gets that part. But I can't put my finger on what it is. I don't think it should have been a dead heat. You can see from the photo. Now she faces the biggest challenge of all: Moving forward.
Relay lineups are very liquid, but it is expected that Tarmoh will the run third leg of the 4x relay, taking the baton from, fittingly, Felix, and then passing it to Jeter for the anchor. At a relay in Monaco last week, the Felix-to-Tarmoh pass was shaky and the Tarmoh-to-Jeter pass was not completed.
It was unclear who might have been at fault.
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