American hurdler Freddie Crittenden has a 200 IQ! While competing in the preliminary heats of the men’s 110m hurdles, fans were shocked to see Crittenden deliberately jogging. Quite expectedly, the American athlete finished in the last position with a timing of 18.27 seconds. There’s more to the story than meets the eye, though. Well, as it turns out, it was all part of Crittenden’s elaborate plan, as he knew the Olympic rules like the back of his hand. As a matter of fact, Crittenden picked up a minor niggle while training for the heats on Saturday. 

Keeping in mind what he wanted to do, the smart athlete decided not to push himself in the heats and make his injury worse. According to the new Olympic rule, athletes who fail to qualify in the preliminary heat will have a second chance to do so in the ‘repechage’ round. And this was what Freddie Crittenden’s bullseye was. However, despite pulling out a clever move, the idea was an awfully large gamble. Even for a second chance, the level of competition in the Olympics is cutthroat. Thus, it is only wise to secure one’s berth at the first available opportunity. 

But the last-position finish gave Crittenden valuable time to recover. Getting 2 days in between before the repechage round, Team USA doctors put in all their efforts to treat the hurdler’s injury to the best effect. And surely enough, the masterstroke paid off as Freddie Crittenden qualified for the semifinal berth this morning. Feeling a lot more spring in his legs and strides, Crittenden looked at his usual elements as he led the qualifiers with a time of 13.42s. 

Well, soon after the news of why Freddie Crittenden decided to deliberately finish last surfaced, IOC officials came in to check for a possible disqualification scenario. Under the ‘spirit of the sport’ rule, the officials wanted to make sure that Crittenden was really injured, and he was not trying to dupe the system by any unfair means. While this was indeed a unique case of finding the loopholes within the system, Freddie Crittenden looks quite confident after having played his cards right. 

Freddie Crittenden reacts to his mind-numbing gamble

Freddie Crittenden has previously proved his worth as one of the best hurdlers in the country. Competing in the 2019 Pan American Championships, Crittenden clinched a silver medal as his first major elite accolade. Keeping up his good work in the 2022 NACAC Championships, the hurdler clinched a gold medal in the 110m hurdles discipline to make a strong case for his Paris Olympic opportunity. 

Coming into the US trials, Freddie Crittenden took the second spot to enter into the Paris Olympics. With a personal best of 12.93s in the hurdles coming in Eugene this year, Crittenden is one of the favorites to get the gold. Following his intelligent antics in Paris, Crittenden looked overwhelmed. The athlete said, “So, I decided to just not make an emotional choice, make a smart choice. 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 and try to kill it in repechage round.”

Crittenden also thanked the medical team and the US team doctors. Terming them as ‘the best’, the American hurdler is now focusing on making the most of his second chance. Having already made his way into the finals, if Freddie Crittenden can manage to pull out a podium finish, Netflix might just have to shoot a fresh documentary with Crittenden starring as the ‘Professor’ in ‘Medal Heist’.