The track and field gods smiled kindly upon Boise State's Jordin Andrade this afternoon!

Anyone watching Andrade run on Monday morning would've thought he finished fourth in Heat 6 of the 400 meter hurdle prelims.  The top three in each heat automatically moved on to the semi-finals.  They'd be joined by the next six fastest hurdlers from any heat.  His time of 49.35s would've put him in that group of 6.

Unfortunately, Andrade was disqualified under the Olympic hurdle rule that reads:

A competitor who trails his foot or leg below the horizontal plane of the top of any hurdle at the instant of clearance, or jumps any hurdle not in his own lane, or in the opinion of the referee, deliberately knocks down any hurdle by hand or foot, shall be disqualified.

Now, I'm no Olympic track and field referee, but I did work as an OHSAA Track and Field official back in Ohio. To me it looks like Andrade made a clear and honest attempt to clear this hurdle.  To me this doesn't look like a deliberate attempt to push it over.

Andrade felt like the ruling was incorrect and filed a protest.  The protest was successful and his disqualification was overruled around 5:30 p.m. MT.  He will get a chance to run the semi finals tomorrow at 6:45 p.m. MT.

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