India’s Kiran Pahal will aim to qualify for the women’s 400m semifinals at the Paris Olympics by participating in repechage heats after she failed to book an automatic qualification at the Stade de France in Paris on Monday.
Kiran, who turned 24 on Monday, clocked 52.51s to finish seventh in her heat race, which gave her a second chance to qualify for the semifinals. The repechage heats will be held on Tuesday, and Kiran will be desperately hoping to improve her season’s and personal best of 50.92 seconds.
World champion Marileidy Paulino of Dominica won the heat with a time of 49.42, followed by Aaliyah Butler (50.52) of USA and Susanne Gogl-Walli (50.67) of Austria. Top three in each of the six heats advanced to the semifinal.
All the others — except for DNS (Did Not Start), DNF (Did Not Finish) and DQ (Disqualified)– moved to the repechage round.
Pahal had made direct qualification to the Paris Olympics after clocking 50.92 seconds at the National Inter-State Championships, held in Panchkula late June.
For the uninitiated, the repechage round was introduced in Paris Olympics to all individual track events from 200m to 1500m, including the hurdles events. The new format replaced the earlier one where some athletes advanced to the semifinals through fastest times in addition to the top placings in the first round heats.
Instead, only the athletes in the top placings will get automatic qualification and all the remaining will get a second chance to qualify for the semi-finals by participating in repechage heats.