Yann Schrub & Stewart McSweyn added to 22-person Olympic 5k final, Ahmed & Nur still out

Crooked Nic Bideau made the call - no way Stewy should have advanced. He was moving backwards and didn’t even end up falling, just got his momentum slowed and then gave up on the race completely.

Someone's gotta have the brains to take the final out hard.......otherwise last man standing will win lol.

ridiculous. all of this

22 runners is a joke.

The Aussie makes the final without earning it. Just like in Budapest last year. Oh well, he will finish dead last anyway.

Jon, can you give us any insight as to the status of the 22nd runner, the spanish athlete Ndikumwenayo is being put through when he stepped off the track and did not finish?

He is listed as DNF on the heat sheets with no little qR or qJ but is then listed on the finals sheet.

This is really bad, it can potentially ruin the entire race. There is going to be way too much traffic and pushing. Guaranteed to have more falls.

And not a single one has a prayer at a medal. This is a disgrace. Just make it two heats. Fastest time takes all. Slow guys first.

Mcsweyn is going to be Jakob's pacer.

It's all part of the plan.

I agree that McSweyn probably wouldn't have advanced, but when he fell he at least was on par with Fafard who ended up qualifying. Probably that also is the reason why they advanced him

If there was only a way to let non automatic qualifiers have a second chance race to make the final.

Be careful or we might end up with the old B final format. The athletes hate it and there is less relevance to the ranking it creates. Athletes may not participate to prevent injury or registering a poor performance. Nobody is dropping their spot in a combined final, so their performance will be logged for all to see.

22 is a very big field. Hopefully they won't go out at 15:30 pace again. But Jakob will not make the same mistake twice either.

Do a devil-take-the -hindmost race. Whoever is last at each 400m split until 600m to go gets pulled from the race - then the field will be down to 11 runners.

I’m not 100% serious about this but it’s not as bad as some LetsRun message board ideas: put some minimum time requirement in the semis in order to advance to the final. Let’s say 13:29.99. If no one in either semi breaks 13:30 then the medals are awarded to the top semifinalists based on time. …Guys would elect to run under 13:30, and it would help at least a little.

I think you're underestimating yourself. That is by the far the worst idea I have ever seen on these boards. You should have more confidence in yourself!

Completely ridiculous. As I watched those races I was thinking that's some tough luck but no justification to advance anybody.

How did McSweyn get in? I watched him throughout. Yeah he tried a different strategy but he wasn't going to rally for the final spot. He seemingly gets bailed out only because he had to briefly bounce into the infield.

But the lenient standard was set a day earlier when Tanaka was advanced in the 1500. I like her but how did that happen? It didn't even take long. By the time they showed the qualifiers after the third heat Tanaka's name was already there as the 19th.

I assume it was due to the brief arm swinging contact by O'Sullivan. That wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It was actually mild by O'Sullivan standards. That NCAA semifinal in 2023 was 10x worse. She's just a big awkward goof out there.

No one should be let back in. Their falls were all easy to predict with slow pace they chose to run. They chose the tactics but don't want to pay the consequences.

I don't think Stewy should've been advanced either, but you people seem to think Nic Bideau is some omnipotent, Illuminati figure, who's able to control officials at all levels of the sport.

It's weird.

Mcsweyn is hopeless, what a mad decision reinstating him over Ahmed.