Here is a video of the entire race. at 3:02:40, right before mile 24, you can see the leader look behind himself A LOT. He also apparently missed all of his water stops. I think he was already significantly disoriented.
It looks like this happened right at the point where the crowd control barriers began and lined the sides of the road up to the finish line.
There were large crowds of spectators at the finish and many of them were standing on the road before the barriers started.
Seems like they need more barriers and better crowd control for a longer section out from the finish line with that many spectators.
Lead vehicles need to exit the course at a point after crowd control barriers begin before the finish. That allows a safer controlled vehicle exit from the course without spectator interference. And it makes it easier for lead runners to understand what is happening and see where to go.
Thanks for the updates, Robert. I live down here now (I'm originally from Oregon). The fans need to be wise enough not to interfere with things. It's hard to protect when people insist on acting foolishly. I feel bad for both runners. They deserved better.
Headline exaggeration: "denied" and "final mile"; good grief, Rojo.
"strikingly similar situation" to Atlanta?! Sorry, nope. Comparing apples to pine cones here, Rojo.
The runner has a high degree of responsibility here for the unfortunate mishap, and it would be a nice gesture and PR opportunity for LA Marathon to also award the first place prize money amount to him.
Ax xn occasional marshal it never ceases to amaze me how thick runners become due to either low oxygen / sugar, high fatigue etc.
One whilst marshalling at an obscure crossroads in a tiny village half the runners tgied to ignore me pointing down the big main road to continue the same direction, and tried to turn off down some obscure minor road.
1. No spectator should be on the course with the runners. Ever. Clearly this takes at least a small amount of the runner's cognition to process, and anyone who's ever run their best marathon will tell you that cognition is appropriately near-zero at this point in the race.
Never seen a Grand Tour stage or One Day Classic, eh?
Two weeks in a row lead vehicle issues cost people wins! Though I think this one was more the runners fault than last week.
im still waiting for the indoor 400m, where they once dq ed 4 guys. we need ro evolve, and get the whole field dq ed. for a toe on the line... we need microscopes for a quality event.