Weird race at U20s today where due to one DNS and one false start, all 4 runners were guaranteed auto-qualfiers to the semis (it was first 4 each heat plus next 4 fastest), figured it was worth pointing out because i can't remember seeing this before.
I think I've seen races where due to DNFs / dropouts everyone who finished a heat ended up qualifying, but usually those still depended upon some time qualifiers and the athletes didn't know they would be guaranteed Qs before the race started like in this heat. Maybe in HS something like this has happened before but I'm blanking on it.
I guess they still ran hard to get preferred lane based on seed time in the semis? But I'm not sure if world juniors does that or just random draw. I wonder what would happen if one of the athletes decided to jog a 70 or 80.