Shaunae Miller's Finish Line Dive

Submission 13,573

Part of a series on 2016 Summer Olympics. [View Related Entries]

About

Shaunae Miller's Finish Line Dive refers to Bahamian runner Shaunae Miller's diving finish to win the gold medal for the women's 400-meter race at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Following the event, Miller's controversial win drew both praise and criticism online, inspiring a slew of photoshops featuring a cutout image of the Olympic champion mid-dive.

Origin

On August 15th, 2016, Shaunae Miller dove into the finish line at the end of the women's 400-meter final to cross right before the American sprinter Allyson Felix (shown below). Following the race, Miller was awarded the gold medal with a time of 49.44.

Spread

Immediately after the event, many social media users posted about the spectacular finish, with some criticizing the dive for being unethical while others defended Miller's tactic (shown below).^[1]^[2] Additionally, some noted that American runner David Neville won the bronze medal in the men's 400-meter final with a diving finish in 2008.^[4]^[5]

Meanwhile, many users posted various photoshops featuring a cutout of Miller diving posted in other base images, including with Jay-Z and Beyonce (shown below, left), at a baseball game (shown below, middle) and in a wrestling ring (shown below, right).^[13]^[14]^[15]

Also on August 15th, Twitter user @blackmon^[6] posted an Arthur's Fist image with the caption "Allyson Felix when she's standing next to Shaunae Miller on the podium" (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet gained over 2,200 likes and 2,000 retweets.

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to Miller's dive, including BuzzFeed,[7] Time,^[8] USA Today,^[9] Metro,^[10] IBI Times^[11] and People.^[12]