SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) — Dozens of hurdlers and sprinters will get a second chance at their once-in-a-lifetime moment thanks to a new rule at the Olympic track competition.

That’s the beauty of the repechage rounds.

Starting on Saturday at Stade de France, all hurdlers and runners in the 200 through 1,500 meter races will get another start if they don’t qualify in their opening heat.

Many athletes don’t want any part of the repechage rounds

Some have never heard of repechage. Others can’t pronounce it (reh-puh-SHAAJ).

Most agree: They want no part of it — unless something disastrous happens, of course.

“It’s kind of like a make-up quiz,” said Masai Russell, the 100-meter hurdles champion at the U.S. Olympic trials. “If it didn’t go right the first time, you could get it right the second time. That’s really good because I feel like with the hurdles especially, anything can happen. I think it’s a really great thing that they’re doing that.”

Russell quickly added, “but I’m not planning on using it, though.”

The repechage concept was taken from rowing, wrestling and martial arts

Based on a French word that literally means “second chance,” the word has taken on its own meaning when applied to sports — mostly rowing, sometimes wrestling or martial arts and, now, track.

In the past, runners who didn’t receive automatic spots into semifinals by finishing near the top of their first-round heats could back in if they were among a predetermined number of fastest times among the non-automatic qualifiers. They were referred to as “lucky losers.”

That means racers would finish and then watch the times of every other heat, hoping their time held up so they could advance. It could be confusing for fans.

Now, instead, anyone who doesn’t earn one of those automatic spots will line up for another race — the repechage round — to determine the final spots in the semis.

Repechage rule should make events more straightforward

When the repechage rule was passed in 2022, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe called it a change that will make “these events more straightforward for athletes and will build anticipation for fans and broadcasters.”

It’s a concept that might come in most handy for hurdlers, who have a higher likelihood of tripping and falling over a barrier, even in the early rounds when they’re taking it easy.

“I actually haven’t thought much about it,” American 400-meter hurdler and medal favorite Rai Benjamin said. “But I don’t have any plans to be in that heat, to be honest.”

Medal favorites who could have benefited from repechage

It certainly could’ve helped Jamaican 200-meter world champion Shericka Jackson at the 2021 Tokyo Games. A medal favorite, Jackson decelerated midway through her preliminary heat and by the time she realized others were gaining ground, she couldn’t speed back up. She finished fourth and didn’t get to run in the final.

Events that include the repechage round will go like this: First round, repechage round, semifinals, final. This ensures that athletes involved will have at least two chances to run on the track, instead of just one.

Hurdler Nia Ali, the 2016 Olympic silver medalist, could’ve used a repechage at the 2022 world championships in Eugene, Oregon. She bumped the second-to-last hurdle and didn’t advance. Like that, she was finished. Under this sort of format, she could have worked her way back into medal contention.

“It’s good for fan engagement, which is very important,” Benjamin said.

A handful of events won’t get a repechage round

The change, however, does not impact the 100 meters because the larger number of qualifiers for that event already adds an additional “preliminary” round for some runners.

For distance events such as the 3,000-meter steeplechase and the 5,000, there are no repechage round because those athletes need more time to recover. The men’s and women’s 10,000 meters and marathons each stage only a final.

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran on Wednesday that it is Iran’s duty to “take revenge” for the attack.

“The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our home and made us sad, but it also prepared a harsh punishment for itself,” Khamenei said on his website.

“Martyr Haniyeh was willing to sacrifice his honorable life in this dignified battle for many years,” he added. “He was prepared for martyrdom and had sacrificed his children and loved ones on this path. He was not afraid of being martyred on the path of God and in order to save the lives of God’s servants. However, following this bitter, tragic event which has taken place within the borders of the Islamic Republic, we believe it is our duty to take revenge.”

Haniyeh was in Tehran for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in on Tuesday.

HAMAS LEADER ISMAIL HANIYEH REPORTEDLY ASSASSINATED

Iran’s government has announced three days of mourning following the assassination.

Khamenei had posted Tuesday morning on the social media platform X that he met with Haniyah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement Secretary General Ziyad al-Nakhalah.

Iran did not provide any details on how Haniyeh was killed. The incident is under investigation.

Nobody immediately took responsibility for the assassination, but Israel was quickly blamed after pledging to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish State, which killed 1,200 people and roughly 250 others were abducted.

While Israel did not immediately comment, it usually does not make public statements on assassinations carried out by its Mossad intelligence agency.

HAMAS LEADER HANIYEH ASSASSINATION: FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS CONDEMN ATTACK

Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, speaks to journalists after his meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in Beirut, Lebanon, June 28, 2021.  (AP)

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene a situation assessment hearing with the heads of the defense establishment on Wednesday in the wake of the assassination. Israel is increasing security for Jewish institutions around the world.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. government would seek to ease tensions but that it would help defend Israel if it were attacked.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said: “This assassination by the Israeli occupation of Brother Haniyeh is a grave escalation that aims to break the will of Hamas and the will of our people and achieve fake goals. We confirm that this escalation will fail to achieve its objectives.”

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 90,000 wounded in the war in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, although the count does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The report says ‘thousands’ of Palestinians detained arbitrarily by Israel during the war in Gaza.

Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the war in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says in a new report.

The 23-page report, released on Wednesday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention. It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of detainees by soldiers.

Based primarily on interviews with released detainees and other victims from October 7 to June 30, the UN report found that since the war began, “thousands of Palestinians” including medical staff, have been “taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded”.

As of the end of June, Israel’s prison service held more than 9,400 “security detainees”, the report said, adding that those detained have been “held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention” and without a lawyer.

“At least 53 Palestinian detainees” are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities, it said. It also detailed “allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of women and men”.

‘Violation’

The report was released during an investigation by the Israeli army, which is questioning nine soldiers over allegations of “substantial abuse” of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

Last week, eight Palestinian prisoners who were released by the Israeli army said they experienced torture during their time in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.

Former Palestinian detainees told the UN that they were held in “cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers”.

The documented abuse included food, sleep and water deprivation and being burned with cigarettes.

“Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence,” the report said.

Palestinian detainees held in Israel are mostly men and boys who are residents, doctors or patients as well as captured Palestinian fighters, it added.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the testimonies gathered by his office and “other entities indicate a range of appalling acts … in flagrant violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law”.

The Israeli military rarely explains its reasons for detaining Palestinians in Gaza although it some cases it has alleged affiliation with Palestinian armed groups or their political wings, the report added.

Israel also fails to provide information regarding the fate of detainees while the Red Cross has been denied access to prisons and other facilities.