Women’s 100m Finals: Jeneba Tarmoh Officially Withdraws From Runoff

Jeneba Tarmoh has officially “withdrawn herself from consideration for one of three Olympic Team positions in the women’s 100 meters,” per USA Track and Field. She will not participate in Monday night’s scheduled 100-meter runoff and will instead cede her spot in the event to Allyson Felix.

USATF put out a release, roughly just seven hours before the tie-breaking sprint was to take place, that included an e-mail from Tarmoh, forwarded by her agent, with her decision to withdraw:

There will be no runoff after all. Jeneba Tarmoh’s agent has told the USA Today that the sprinter “will not run today” and instead will surrender her spot in the women’s 100 meters for the 2012 Olympics. This means Allyson Felix will head to London to compete in the 100m sprint, along with the first and second place finishers, Carmelita Jeter and Tianna Madison.

Speculation of a canceled runoff began Sunday evening when Tarmoh reportedly decided to pull out, despite representatives from USA Track and Field trying to convince her to run, though she didn’t officially withdraw at the time. The story was originally reported by SI’s Tim Layden.

There is one spot left for the United States contingent in the women’s 100 meters, and there are only two competitors remaining. Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh are scheduled to compete in the eagerly anticipated runoff at 8 p.m. Monday. The pair finished in a dead heat for the final spot last week.

Felix doesn’t need to worry about earning a spot in London: She won the 200 at the U.S. Team Trials and is a favorite to win the gold in that event at the Olympics. But for Tarmoh, who finished fifth in that event, the runoff is her chance to represent the U.S. in August.

So about that women’s 100-meter runoff that’s supposed to take place on Monday in primetime. According to SI.com’s Tim Layden, Jeneba Tarmoh, part of the tie for the third and final spot on the U.S. Olympic team in the 100, may be having second thoughts. The race was declared a dead-heat one week ago, and a runoff was the agreed upon resolution.

But now there’s this:

The long-awaited runoff between Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh in the 100-meter dash will take place in Eugene, Ore., Monday night at 8 p.m. ET, as first reported by Sports Illustrated contributor George Schroeder. Felix and Tarmoh finished in a dead heat for third place in the first running of the 100m finals. Only three competitors qualify for the Olympic team in each event. Felix and Tarmoh had the option of resorting to a coin flip to determine the winner, but instead they elected to have a runoff.

NBC has been televising the Olympic swimming trials at night, but Tim Layden reported that the network will cut to the sprint, as this has been one of the more closely followed stories in Olympic qualifying all week.

How Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh will decide who gets the third slot to represent Team USA in the women’s 100 meters won’t be decided until after Saturday night’s 200 final, in which both will compete. But their coach, Bobby Kersee, has made his mind clear on the subject: He thinks the two should run on Tuesday, and that for anything to happen any sooner would be unfair to the recovering athletes.

Basically, the issue is that with the intense training and competitions to qualify for the 200 -- an event in which Felix won silver in 2004 and 2008 -- Kersee feels they need more time to figure this out, which would make sense. As of now, the runners will either have a runoff or a coin flip, or one could bow out. Both runners could still make the Olympics no matter how the situation is decided: Felix is considered a favorite in the 200 and both runners could be selected to the 4x100 team, as they tied for third place in the 100.

The tiebreaker mechanism to determine the third place finisher in the women’s 100 meter event at the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials will be determined following Saturday’s final of the women’s 200 meter. USA Track & Field has already been in contact with the athletes, Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix, and their support teams, and the plan now is to announce the mechanism either Saturday evening or Sunday morning.

The two sprinters finished in a dead heat at 11.07 seconds at the trials in Eugene, Ore., on June 23. A photograph of the finish could not determine who the leader was. Tarmoh was unofficially timed .001 ahead of Felix on the track, but referee Bob Podkaminer overruled the time.

The women’s 100 meter event awaits a runoff for third place between Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix after the two finished in a dead heat for the spot on June 23. However, the call certainly wasn’t an easy one -- or even one settled by the photo-finish evaluator.

As Tim Layden details in an excellent article for Sports Illustrated, Roger Jennings, the man who had to determine the photo finish, knew he was going to have a tough time once he saw the image of Tarmoh and Felix cross the finish line:

There’s a bit of a problem at the US Track and Field team trials: Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh finished in a dead heat for the third, and final, Olympic spot in the women’s 100m dash. To solve it, the two will either compete in a runoff or flip a coin -- a decision that came after much debate. But the winner of the men’s 100m finals, Justin Gatlin, came up with an alternative solution: Wrestling.

He was joking around, but this probably wasn’t the best idea. From Jim Caple:

As the first few days of the 2012 Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene, Ore. for the most part have concluded, there is still one area that needs to be decided. The 100 meter Women’s event needs to have a tie-breaker for the final spot on the team, as Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix both finished tied for third at 11.07 earlier in the day. There is no official tie-break policy however, so the USATF has decided on a runoff... or a coin flip.

Tarmoh finished with a .001 advantage of 11.068 to 11.069, but third place was ruled a dead heat. The winner of the runoff will join Carmelita Jeter and Tianna Madison on the U.S. team for London.