Olympics 2016: Allyson Felix lost a gold medal to Shaunae Miller because of a dive. It’s totally legal.

American sprinter Allyson Felix would’ve had another Olympic gold medal instead of a silver if Shaunae Miller had stayed on her feet. Miller, a fantastic runner from the Bahamas, beat Felix in the women’s Olympic 400-meter sprint on Monday night by diving, belly-first, for the finish line.

Miller came out of the blocks with a big lead on Felix. But as she approached the finish line, she seemed to run out of gas, with Felix breathing down her neck in the last few meters. So Miller dived, her torso crossing the finish line at 49.44 seconds, seven-hundredths of a second before Felix’s 49.51.

The race ended with Felix on her feet and Miller on the ground looking spent. If Miller had stayed upright, she would have lost. If Felix had dived, she could have won instead. Miller’s dive was clearly a move of desperation.


And it’s completely legal.

Diving is legal in track and field, but it’s also risky

In the wake of Miller’s win, there was a lingering question from fans watching at home of how legal her move was. But it was completely legal. In fact, the rules of track and field state that you hit the finish line when your torso, which is considered different from your head or arms, crosses the finish line.

"The first athlete whose torso (as distinguished from the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the closest edge of the finish line is the winner," NBC explains.

This is why runners lean forward in close races — to get their torsos over the threshold.

Miller’s dive allowed her torso to cross the finish line before Felix’s, even though it seemed like she had run out of gas. And Miller isn’t even the first track and field athlete at these Olympics who dived to get a better result.

In the preliminary heats for the 110-meter hurdles, Brazilian runner Joao Vitor de Oliveira dived across the finish line and finished fourth, earning a spot in the semifinals.