Repechage

'fishing out' or 'rescuing') is a practice in series competitions that allows participants who failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round.

A larger pool results in a longer wait for first-round losers to determine if they will compete in repechage.

Dual third-place finishers can result with full, quarter-final, or double-elimination repechage.

The losers of the prior two repechage rounds are often considered to take fifth and seventh places.

At many levels of amateur play in baseball and softball, including the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), tournaments are established as a full double-elimination repechage.

An advantage for team events is more willingness to use direct elimination (DE) from the start (with seeding by drawing lots) instead of pools.

In karate, judo,[3] taekwondo, and wrestling[4] tournaments, single-elimination brackets are used to determine the two athletes who will compete in the final for first and second place.

Repechage addresses the possibility of two top competitors meeting in an early round, allowing the loser a chance to compete for a bronze medal.

This is standard competition for the Olympic-class events, such as the ISAF Sailing World Cup.

In field athletics, automatic qualification for the next round depends on meeting or surpassing a specified minimum result.

Other competitors with the best times may qualify for the next round indirectly as "fastest losers" as a result of the repechage.

Alternatives to repechage include single-elimination, round-robin, wild card and the Swiss system.