diff --git a/apps/web/src/actions.ts b/apps/web/src/actions.ts
index 31fb56b..4fa7d6f 100644
--- a/apps/web/src/actions.ts
+++ b/apps/web/src/actions.ts
@@ -705,26 +705,50 @@ export const registerActions = (app: Hono): void => {
       if (trackId.length === 0) throw new UploadError('INVALID_INPUT', 'Choose a track first.');
 
       /**
-       * `new` creates the athlete on the spot.
+       * `new` means "I have not told you who this is", not "make me another
+       * one".
        *
-       * Identifying an athlete is the one step scoring cannot proceed without,
-       * and it used to require having already created an athlete record — a
-       * prerequisite the UI hid until you had satisfied it. Someone who had
-       * never added an athlete saw a collapsed panel offering nothing to click,
-       * and every run they made was mathematically incapable of producing a
-       * moment. Picking a face is now the whole of the setup.
+       * It created an athlete unconditionally, and the client sends it whenever
+       * its own athlete list has not loaded yet — which is every click made
+       * faster than a page reload. A user marking their child on the footage,
+       * pausing and clicking again a dozen times, produced a dozen athletes
+       * named "My athlete", each bound to exactly one fragment, each in turn
+       * made the focal one. Scoring reads the focal flag, so all of that work
+       * collapsed to whichever click happened last: production ended up with
+       * eight athletes, seven of them duplicates created less than three
+       * minutes apart, and one selection in use.
+       *
+       * Identifying is still the one step that cannot be skipped, so this
+       * still creates an athlete when there genuinely is none. It just prefers
+       * the one already being followed.
        */
       const requested = c.req.param('id') ?? '';
+      const existing = requested === 'new' ? await listAthletes(root) : [];
+      const reusable = existing.find((candidate) => candidate.isFocal) ?? existing[0];
       const athlete =
         requested === 'new'
-          ? await addAthlete(root, { name: 'My athlete' })
+          ? (reusable ?? (await addAthlete(root, { name: 'My athlete' })))
           : await getAthlete(root, requested);
       const athleteId = athlete.id;
       // Following and being bound to a track are different things; a picked
       // athlete is obviously the one to follow.
       await updateAthlete(root, athleteId, { focalTrackId: trackId, focal: true });
-      // Every fragment the user picked, not only the first.
-      const assigned = await assignTracksToAthlete(root, athleteId, requestedIds);
+
+      /**
+       * Add to the athlete, or set them, depending on what the caller knew.
+       *
+       * The picker holds the whole selection and posts all of it, so unticking
+       * a crop has to be able to remove it — that call names the athlete and
+       * replaces the set. A caller that said `new` did not know who this was
+       * and cannot have sent the existing fragments, so replacing would silently
+       * discard every earlier pick. Marking the same child at six moments on the
+       * footage should leave them marked at six moments.
+       */
+      const adding = requested === 'new' && reusable !== undefined;
+      const finalIds = adding
+        ? [...new Set([...(await tracksForAthlete(root, athleteId)), ...requestedIds])]
+        : requestedIds;
+      const assigned = await assignTracksToAthlete(root, athleteId, finalIds);
 
       startAnalysis(root, { preset: 'balanced', scoreOnly: true });
 
diff --git a/apps/web/src/identifytwice.test.ts b/apps/web/src/identifytwice.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..66107fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/web/src/identifytwice.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,131 @@
+import { mkdtempSync, rmSync } from 'node:fs';
+import { tmpdir } from 'node:os';
+import path from 'node:path';
+
+import { Hono } from 'hono';
+import { afterAll, beforeAll, describe, expect, it } from 'vitest';
+
+/**
+ * Marking the same child twice should leave you with one child.
+ *
+ * `new` created an athlete unconditionally, and the client sends `new` whenever
+ * its own athlete list has not loaded — which is every click made faster than a
+ * page reload. A user marking their kid on the footage, pausing, and clicking
+ * again produced one athlete per click, each bound to a single fragment, each in
+ * turn made focal. Scoring reads the focal flag, so a dozen careful selections
+ * collapsed to whichever happened last. Production reached eight athletes, seven
+ * of them duplicates created inside three minutes, with one selection in use.
+ */
+
+let home: string;
+let root: string;
+let app: Hono;
+
+/**
+ * The route fires a re-score and does not wait for it. It fails here, loudly
+ * and harmlessly, because the fixture video is a path that does not exist —
+ * that is the "1 source file(s) are no longer where they were imported from"
+ * on stderr, and it is expected.
+ */
+beforeAll(async () => {
+  home = mkdtempSync(path.join(tmpdir(), 'reeleel-identify-'));
+  process.env['REELEEL_HOME'] = home;
+
+  const { createProject } = await import('@reeleel/core');
+  const created = await createProject({
+    name: 'twice',
+    path: path.join(home, 'projects', 'twice'),
+    sport: 'basketball',
+  });
+  root = created.path ?? created.root;
+
+  const { execute, projectDb, createTrack } = await import('@reeleel/core');
+  const db = await projectDb(root);
+  const now = new Date().toISOString();
+  await execute(
+    db,
+    'INSERT INTO source_videos (id, project_id, path, created_at, updated_at) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?)',
+    ['vid_a', 'prj_test', '/tmp/vid_a.mp4', now, now],
+  );
+  for (let i = 0; i < 4; i += 1) {
+    await createTrack(root, {
+      videoId: 'vid_a',
+      className: 'player',
+      confidence: 0.9,
+      samples: [
+        { ts: i * 10, frame: i * 300, x: 1, y: 2, w: 3, h: 4, confidence: 0.9 },
+        { ts: i * 10 + 5, frame: i * 300 + 150, x: 1, y: 2, w: 3, h: 4, confidence: 0.9 },
+      ],
+    });
+  }
+
+  const { registerActions } = await import('./actions.js');
+  app = new Hono();
+  registerActions(app);
+});
+
+afterAll(async () => {
+  const { resetDbCache } = await import('@reeleel/core');
+  resetDbCache();
+  rmSync(home, { recursive: true, force: true });
+  delete process.env['REELEEL_HOME'];
+});
+
+const trackIds = async (): Promise<string[]> => {
+  const { listTracks } = await import('@reeleel/core');
+  return (await listTracks(root, 'vid_a')).map((track) => track.id);
+};
+
+/** What the client posts when its athlete list has not loaded yet. */
+const identify = async (ids: string[]): Promise<Response> =>
+  app.request(`/projects/${encodeURIComponent(root)}/athletes/new/track`, {
+    method: 'POST',
+    headers: { accept: 'application/json', 'content-type': 'application/json' },
+    body: JSON.stringify({ trackId: ids[0], trackIds: ids }),
+  });
+
+describe('marking the same athlete over and over', () => {
+  it('keeps one athlete and accumulates the fragments', async () => {
+    const tracks = await trackIds();
+    const { listAthletes, tracksForAthlete } = await import('@reeleel/core');
+
+    // Six clicks, exactly as a user scrubbing the footage would make them.
+    for (const id of tracks.slice(0, 3)) {
+      const response = await identify([id]);
+      expect(response.status).toBe(200);
+    }
+
+    const athletes = await listAthletes(root);
+    expect(athletes).toHaveLength(1);
+
+    // Every pick kept, not merely the last one.
+    const bound = await tracksForAthlete(root, athletes[0]!.id);
+    expect(bound.sort()).toEqual(tracks.slice(0, 3).sort());
+    expect(athletes[0]!.isFocal).toBe(true);
+  });
+
+  it('still lets a named athlete replace their set, so unticking works', async () => {
+    const tracks = await trackIds();
+    const { listAthletes, tracksForAthlete } = await import('@reeleel/core');
+    const athlete = (await listAthletes(root))[0]!;
+
+    // The picker knows who it is talking about and sends the whole selection.
+    const response = await app.request(
+      `/projects/${encodeURIComponent(root)}/athletes/${athlete.id}/track`,
+      {
+        method: 'POST',
+        headers: { accept: 'application/json', 'content-type': 'application/json' },
+        body: JSON.stringify({ trackId: tracks[0], trackIds: [tracks[0]] }),
+      },
+    );
+    expect(response.status).toBe(200);
+
+    expect(await tracksForAthlete(root, athlete.id)).toEqual([tracks[0]]);
+    expect(await listAthletes(root)).toHaveLength(1);
+  });
+
+  it('creates exactly one athlete for a project that has none', async () => {
+    const { listAthletes } = await import('@reeleel/core');
+    expect(await listAthletes(root)).toHaveLength(1);
+  });
+});