Lucky Loser

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Lucky Loser ( English : lucky loser ) is a technical term in sport. It refers to an athlete who fails in the qualification or a first round, but still progresses to the next round of the competition because he is one of the best losers. The reasons for such a move up can be very different. Originally it was only the move up if a qualified participant failed (e.g. due to injury). In the meantime, competition systems are also in use in which the “best losers” automatically advance. An example of this is the knockout mode in the Four Hills Tournament or the Three Cushion World Cup , in which two or three players from the qualifying round complete the main field (final round). The decisive factor here is the better general average (GD) of the players.

Selection of the loser to come up

Lucky loser regulations also contain stipulations on how the "best losers" are determined.

  • In addition to the 25 winners of the duels of the first round, the five losers with the highest points move up in the Four Hills Tournament.
  • In tennis , the world rankings were originally used to determine the “best loser”. In order to avoid manipulation, the best-placed player is no longer selected automatically in Grand Slam tournaments, but a successor is determined by drawing lots from the four best losers in the last qualifying round. At the tournaments of the ATP and WTA , those seeded players who were in the highest seeding position when they were eliminated in the last qualifying round move up into the main field as lucky losers. If no seeded player has reached the last qualifying round, then the highest seeded player from the previous qualifying round moves up to the main field.

Borderline cases

There are comparable procedures in numerous sports, although the name lucky loser is not used in every case .

  • In athletics , the starter fields of the throwing and jumping disciplines are filled to twelve athletes if fewer participants achieve the required qualification performance. In the running disciplines, not only the best (e.g. 1st to 3rd place) of each individual qualification run qualify for the following round, but also a number of athletes whose respective placements were not good enough for automatic qualification, but the fastest Times achieved by all remaining participants.
  • At the European Football Championship in 1992 , the Yugoslav team was not allowed to participate in the tournament in response to the prevailing military conflict there . Instead, the team from Denmark, who lost to the Yugoslavs in qualifying, started and eventually became European champions.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Qualification, applicants, favorites: rules of the Four Hills Tournament. Abendzeitung München , December 30, 2017, accessed on April 11, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Glossary - Ko-System. In: skispringen.com. Retrieved April 11, 2020 .
  3. ↑ 2020 MEN'S AND WOMEN'S ITF WORLD TENNIS TOUR REGULATIONS. (PDF) International Tennis Federation , p. 30 , accessed on April 11, 2020 (English, Section VL5 After Commencement of the Qualifying Competition).