[4] Later that year he placed third at the national championships, behind Olympic finalist George Guthrie and NCAA champion Hugo Leistner.

[6][8] Dye then won at the national championships in 14.6, equalling both his personal best and Guthrie's meeting record from the previous year.

[5][9][10] Dye again ran 14.6, this time for the metric 110 m hurdles, at the 1928 Southwestern Olympic Tryouts, qualifying for the final Olympic Trials;[11] the time broke Earl Thomson's world record for the metric distance of 14.8,[11] although it was still inferior to Thomson's 14.4 for the imperial hurdles and was never ratified as a world record.

[1][12] At the final Trials in Cambridge Dye placed third behind Steve Anderson and John Collier, qualifying for the Olympics.

[12] At the Olympics in Amsterdam Dye won his heat in 15.0 and then his semi-final in 14.8, a time that equalled both the Olympic record and Thomson's still-official metric world record; however, South Africa's George Weightman-Smith ran 14.6 in a subsequent semi-final.