Olympic 5,000m heats were pure chaos: Moh Ahmed out after fall; cameraman gets in the way (2024)

PARIS — Moh Ahmed’s remaining Olympic dream died in a crumpled heap on the Stade de France track on Wednesday.

The 33-year-old Canadian distance runner fell victim to the cruel realities of the 5,000 metres, a gruelling race on its own made tougher when athletes are bunched up in a massive pack and getting ever more desperate to break free down the stretch in the final lap.

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Ahmed, who won the silver medal in the 5,000 at the Tokyo Olympics, was the first to fall, and four other athletes in the heat did the same on the final corner. Those four athletes were all reinstated by the race referee. Ahmed was not.

“Unfortunately, while running in the pack, Moh stood on the ankle of an athlete in front of him, which caused him to fall,” Athletics Canada said in a statement. “We have watched the video several times with the (World Athletics) Video Referee and it was clear that Moh was not impeded or jostled before this happened and so it is considered his responsibility to avoid the athlete in front.

“In these circ*mstances he could not be reinstated.”

Ahmed scrambled back to his feet and finished the race in a distant 14:15.76. He did not speak to reporters as he sprinted through the mixed zone on Wednesday following the race.

It was a tough Olympics appearance, as he finished fourth in the 10,000 metres on Aug. 2, missing out on the podium by just .33 seconds.

However, fellow Canadian Thomas Fafard, who was running behind Ahmed when the fall occurred on Wednesday, emerged from the carnage to finish eighth and advance to the Olympic final in what was his first international race.
The race giveth and the race taketh away.

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“That was crazy,” said Fafard, a 25-year-old from Repentigny, Que. “To be honest, I was pretty surprised that everyone was there. Obviously, it was a slow race so I knew it would be really chaotic but at this point I can’t imagine that it would be as much as this.”

He said he briefly thought about stopping to check on his teammate.

“I was like what the f— is going on? I almost stopped, like, making sure he was fine, but then I had to focus on my race, just try to stay in contact with the front pack and hope for the best in the last lap.”

The larger collision involved Great Britain’s George Mills, Hugo Hay of France, Dominic Lokinyomo Lobalu of the IOC Refugee Team, Mike Foppen of the Netherlands and Thierry Ndikumwenayo of Spain. Hay and Mills made contact, Hay stayed upright and qualified, while Mills and the others went arse over tea kettle as they say.

“We were all going down like skittles,” said Mills. “It seemed crazy out there. I was tucked in on the inside on the last lap, which was where I wanted to be. I knew some sort of gap would open up in the straight. It did, and I was ready to put my foot down. Then all of a sudden, ‘boom,’ down I went.”

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He said the “French lad” took him down. After a video review, a World Athletics referee reinstated Mills, Lobalu, Foppen and Ndikumwenayo.

As if that wasn’t enough drama for one event, the second heat featured an incident with a cameraman too near the inside lane on a corner, causing a couple of runners to veer off course so they wouldn’t collide with him.

“I don’t think I was so affected by the cameraman,” said Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, who crossed the line first in the second heat. “It happened very fast. Typical, it happened in a curve. I’m just enough behind to avoid it. I see something is happening. It’s a big camera, so it was bad for many.

“I’m very ready for things happening on the tracks if someone is falling or something happening. Sometimes things happen on the course. Maybe cameramen are full of adrenaline and they jump on the field. If it’s somewhere it shouldn’t be happening, it’s in the Olympics. I think he understood very fast, but the damage was already done. In the worst case, the runners get the race destroyed. Worst case for us, it will be a larger field in the final.”

dbarnes@postmedia.com

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