Half-Marathon Runner Loses Championship After Guide Vehicle Makes A Wrong Turn
It's the kind of mistake you didn't think could even happen during a race like this...
A half-marathon runner lost a championship and a shot at a world title in one of the strangest ways anyone has ever lost anything.
We've all seen road running events or cycling events where there are support vehicles out on the course.
That seems like a pretty straightforward gig. The courses are usually marked pretty clearly, and you'd think that it would be pretty tough to mess this up in any catastrophic, title-costing fashion.
But you'd be wrong.
According to the Associated Press, runner Jess McClain appeared to be on her way to a pretty easy win in a half-marathon in Atlanta, with the Phoenix resident cruising out to a substantial lead.
Then something weird happened: the guide vehicle that McClain was following along the course made a wrong turn.
McClain addressed the incident in a lengthy Instagram post, and it's pretty wild.
She revealed that she followed a guide vehicle as well as a media motorcycle and a police escort off the course for an entire kilometer, around a mile and a half from the finish line.
"I had to come to a stop, make a tight & complete U-turn & run back onto course as a national championship title & a world team spot slipped away," McClain wrote.
That is terrible.
McClain ended up in ninth, while the two other runners who wound up off course with her finished in 12th and 13th.
She called on US Track & Field and the Atlanta Track Club to make things right.
Man, what a brutal situation all around.
You feel for McClain, but it also doesn't seem right to just go back and fix the standings.
Unfortunately, it seems like the only thing you can really do is make sure that anyone driving a vehicle knows the course.
Which, I thought would've been a given, but, well, here we are…