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Freddie Crittenden, American hurdler who jogged prelim race, qualifies for 110-meter hurdle finals via repechage round

FaceProfileby:Thomas Goldkamp•08/07/24
Freddie Crittenden
Photo by James Lang / USA TODAY Sports

There’s confidence and there’s cold calculation. Somewhere in the middle stands 110-meter hurdler Freddie Crittenden, a United States sprinter who showed a remarkable amount of both in qualifying.

Crittenden’s Olympics could have been over when he felt a slight twinge as he ran his qualifying heat of the 110-meter hurdles.

Instead, in a split-second, seemingly, Crittenden ran the math. He could pull up in his qualifier and preserve the muscle he might have just injured or he could sprint it out and hope to make his way through standard qualifying. He opted for the former, seeking the repechage round as his ticket to the 110-meter final.

And, rather brilliantly, the move paid off.

Freddie Crittenden ran a 13.23-second time to advance out of the repechage round into the final of one of the sport’s most challenging events. This after he made headlines internationally for simply jogging out his original qualifier.

The former Syracuse sprinter explained that he had strained a right abductor and was trying to be careful about inflaming the injury further.

“So I decided to just not make an emotional choice, make a smart choice,” Crittenden said after his qualifier. “Give my body time to recover a little bit from being aggravated. Lean on my medical doctors. Lean on God. And just wait for repechage round.

“Come out [here] and try to kill it at the repechage round.”

He did just that, getting into the 110-meter hurdles final as the seventh of eight qualifiers. He’s certainly capable of giving a push for the gold medal, though, having entered as the second-fastest in the event in the world this year.

Things worked out quite nicely and now he’ll have a shot at a medal.

“Obviously the timing is terrible. This is the biggest meet of my life,” Freddie Crittenden said after his qualifier. “If there wasn’t a repechage round, I probably would have been balls to the walls, ran as hard as I could, crash and burn, whatever happens. But now I’ve got a couple days, and I’ll do that on Tuesday.”