U.S. women’s 4x100 team will run by itself for chance to make Olympic finals after successful protest

The U.S. women’s 4x100 relay team will get a second chance to earn its place in the Olympic final after successfully protesting its last-place finish in the qualifying race Thursday afternoon. The team will run a time trial at 7 p.m. ET to determine whether it’ll advance to the final.

This is great news for Team USA, which had disaster strike in qualifying when Allyson Felix collided with another runner while trying to hand the baton to teammate English Gardner. The team ended up finishing dead last in the race by more than 30 seconds, then immediately said afterwards that it intended to file a protest of the result because Felix was interfered with.

The successful appeal means that Team USA will now get a second chance to run its qualifying and set a new time. The team needs to beat China’s time of 42.70 seconds in order to earn qualification to the final. The first time around, the U.S. took more than a minute to finish due to Felix’s failed hand off.

Felix pushed to make sure her teammates finished out the race, though, which is looking like a downright brilliant decision now. Finishing the race is required in order to file a protest, so failing to complete the relay could’ve cost the U.S. its second chance. Now that they’ve successfully appealed that initial result, the Americans will try to lock up their spot in the final Thursday night.