Olympic runners George Mills from Great Britain and Hugo Hay from France exchanged elbows during the latest 5000m qualifying heat, resulting in a domino effect that caused four other athletes to fall and the rest to scramble to continue amid the chaos.
Hay remained upright and continued running, but Mills, alongside Thierry Ndikumwenayo from Spain, Dominic Lokinyomo from the Refugee Team, Moh Ahmed from Canada, and Mike Foppen from the Netherlands, fell on the tracks and were thus unable to compete properly.
After crossing the finish line, Mills caught up to Hay and reportedly shouted obscenities while furiously pointing his finger at him.
“I’m probably not allowed to [reveal] what I said,” the athlete told the BBC.
The British athlete would later explain that he believed Hay pushed him aside in order to try to break ahead, causing his legs to get tangled up.
Disastrous 5,000m race ends with five athletes on the floor after a collision between Britain’s George Mills and France’s Hugo Hay causes a domino effect
“I think it’s pretty clear. I got stepped out on as I was about to kick in the home straight and boom, the French lad took me down.”
Upon reviewing the incident, judges decided to reinstate four of the affected competitors, with only Canada’s Moh Ahmed having his appeal denied.
Mills, on the other hand, believes that the measure ultimately had nothing to do with his qualification, as he expressed confidence in his ability to win the race had the accident not happened.
“From my perspective that was the perfect qualifier for me, going through the first 2k in six minutes. I was like: ‘Nobody in this field can run away from me at this pace’, so I was just sitting, waiting, biding my time, gonna kick off the home straight then bang, hit the deck. What can you do?”
Some experts, such as former Olympic silver medallist Steve Cram, were not as sure as Mills and expressed their doubts about his performance.
“George was in a bad position from a long way out, he should have checked out much earlier,” Cram explained.
“There’s lots of experienced men in there and yes, everyone thinks they can kick, but when you get to that situation [very slow pace] the chances of people going down are incredibly increased.”
Hugo Hay would later categorically deny the accusations in an interview with Eurosport, explaining that he made contact with his opponent as a result of being pushed around by other competitors.
“At the end, there was a big pile-up,” he explained. “The Englishman came to tell me it was my fault, so I went to look at the slow-motion replay. As far as I’m concerned, it was someone else who pushed me and I just put my elbow in.”
Accidents continued to plague the event as the second heat concluded with another fallen athlete and the unexpected intervention of a cameraman
The accidents would continue in the next heat of the event, as at one point, a cameraman was seen wandering into the path of the runners midway through the race, making them suddenly change course.
Another athlete, American Abdihamid Nur, also fell and ultimately finished last.
The first place in the second qualifying event went to Jakob Ingebrigtsen from Norway, followed closely by Biniam Mehary from Ethiopia and Isaac Kimeli from Belgium.
The top places for the first qualifying event, in which the four-man accident took place, saw Norway’s Narve Nordas, Ethiopia’s Hagos Gebrhiwet, and Belgium’s John Heymans arrive at first, second, and third places, respectively.
The finals of the 5000m men’s long-running event will take place this Saturday (August 10), and it will come with the participation of a total of 20 athletes – as opposed to the usual 16 – due to the accident.
Viewers were left stunned by the chaotic qualifiers, with many considering the number of runners to be unsafe and others pointing fingers at each runner
“This was absolutely wild to watch. I realize rules change with the Olympics, but if pushing and bumping isn’t allowed on the high-school track, why allow it for the Olympics?” asked one viewer.
“It looked like it was George Mills’ fault but then he claimed he was ‘moved out on’ in the interview afterwards,” theorized another.
“Unfortunately this looks like George Mills’ fault – got himself in a bad position and caused chaos trying to push to the front,” said one journalist for the BBC on her X account. “Well, he has been reinstated by event organizers. Shows what I know.”
“Look at it in slow-mo and you’ll see Hugo Hay pushes George Mills, then George’s arm comes out to steady himself,” replied one user.
“There’s no place for that kind of reaction,” wrote one user as others joined in to lament the incident and the altercation it caused
