Bassitt runs 5th in heat, will compete in Repechage

PARIS – Trevor Bassitt's debut at the 2024 Paris Olympics may not have gone quite as planned. But the 400 meter hurdler from Bluffton will have a chance Tuesday morning to make it right. Bassitt, who ran in the second heat of the first round on Monday, finished the race in 49.38. That was the fifth-best time in his heat. The top three finishers in each of the five heats advanced to Wednesday's semifinals. "I don't know, I didn't get out that well," Bassitt told NBC's LewisJohnson after the race. "I think I rushed the first half of my block start, I ended up kind of far from 1, and I just wasn't really able to pick up the whole time." This morning, a 6 a.m. Eastern time, Bassitt will run in the Repechage Round, with other hurdlers who finished their race but didn't automatically qualify. Bassitt will be competing in the first heat. He has to finish in the top two of his heat to reach Wednesday's semifinal Nineteen athletes will take part in the Repechage Round Tuesday morning. In his race Monday, Bassitt wasn't able to match his personal best (47.38) or his season's best (47.82). In his heat, he ran next to Norway's Karsten Warholm, the world record holder. Warholm ran a 47.57 in the first round, winning the heat and advancing to the semifinal. Also advancing out of Bassitt's heat were France's Clement Ducos (47.69) and Qatar's Abderrahman Samba (48.35). "I was in a really fast heat; obviously, the top two guys running 47, that's pretty rare," Bassitt told Johnson. "But at the end of the day, you can't show up to the Olympic games, run a 49 in the first round, and think something good's going to happen, because that's just not how it works. So, I have to be better." Bassitt has that chance this morning, and he said he plans to take advantage of it. "We build off adversity, we love adversity," he said. "If I gotta have an extra race in my legs to get a medal, so be it. So come back tomorrow, execute better, get to the semis and go from there." Bassitt will look to join his American teammate, Rai Benjamin, in the semifinals. Benjamin, who took silver in the 2020 Tokyo Games, won his heat Monday in 48.82, jogging to the finish.