End of the story.
He was running fast, was not well positionned and the bottle were slippery.
End of the story.
He was running fast, was not well positionned and the bottle were slippery.
slippery hey?
then how did he manage to grab the only bottle he actually tried to close his hand around?
The only thing that is slippery is him.
The bottles were lined up right next to each other. It was impossible NOT to knock them over.
Try it yourselves, running at 12 mph
Ah the old "domino defense!" One thing leads to another....what can you do ?!
let's try an experiment wrote:
The bottles were lined up right next to each other. It was impossible NOT to knock them over.
Try it yourselves, running at 12 mph
Of course, Kipchoge is so awesome he did the impossible and grabbed bottle #1 without knocking the others over, come to think of it so did the next guy!
I always forget about the speed. It’s hard for me to grab them when running at ~5:15 pace and I am pretty coordinated for a runner. I guess it’s reasonable to give him a pass.
like really bro wrote:
I always forget about the speed. It’s hard for me to grab them when running at ~5:15 pace and I am pretty coordinated for a runner. I guess it’s reasonable to give him a pass.
Then why was everyone else able to do it perfectly fine?
Fvcking azshole. Prosecute him criminally for reckless endangerment at a minimum, even though this was clearly an intentional. In many places it could successfully be argued to have been a criminal act.
Yet another reason I didn’t watch the OG, and increasingly don’t watch any pro t&f/thon. If they’re not going to do anything serious about this intentional malfeasance, I refuse to be subjected to it.
F him, and F tptb if they don’t nail him criminally.
Olympic Spirit wrote:
End of the story.
He was running fast, was not well positionned and the bottle were slippery.
Anyone willing to knock down all the bottles would be willing to lie about it.
As far as not being able to control himself, how many races have you seen and how many people knocked down a whole line of bottles yet grabbed the last one in line. That is ridiculous to think it was accidental.
He probably thought is was part of gamesmanship, so it was acceptable.
Ban him for a year.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
Fvcking azshole. Prosecute him criminally for reckless endangerment at a minimum, even though this was clearly an intentional. In many places it could successfully be argued to have been a criminal act.
Yet another reason I didn’t watch the OG, and increasingly don’t watch any pro t&f/thon. If they’re not going to do anything serious about this intentional malfeasance, I refuse to be subjected to it.
F him, and F tptb if they don’t nail him criminally.
You sir, are a moron.
let's try an experiment wrote:
The bottles were lined up right next to each other. It was impossible NOT to knock them over.
Try it yourselves, running at 12 mph
Impossible you say.....yet the couple of guys right ahead of him managed to grab a single bottle without knocking others over.....
From his position it was almost impossible.
On first viewing it does look deliberate, but careful analysis shows what really happened.
Typical.
baetn wrote:
Sprintgeezer wrote:
Fvcking azshole. Prosecute him criminally for reckless endangerment at a minimum, even though this was clearly an intentional. In many places it could successfully be argued to have been a criminal act.
Yet another reason I didn’t watch the OG, and increasingly don’t watch any pro t&f/thon. If they’re not going to do anything serious about this intentional malfeasance, I refuse to be subjected to it.
F him, and F tptb if they don’t nail him criminally.
You sir, are a moron.
And you are part of the problem: a fvcking puszy.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
baetn wrote:
You sir, are a moron.
And you are part of the problem: a fvcking puszy.
Great comeback. Right on level with your subpar IQ, big keyboard warrior.
Not another thread about this here... I just posted this on another website, I'll copy-paste to here. A lot of the background will be already known to many of the experts here on LetsRun, but I'll keep it in anyways.
I really don't like to see an innocent guy get thrown under the bus, and with so many people here and everywhere else online talking like they know for sure this guy is guilty, I'd like to come to his defense.
I present my defense of Morhad Amdouni as follows:
The conditions during this marathon are as close to the worst conditions you could have during a marathon. Perfect conditions for a marathon are low humidity, medium cloud cover, 10 decrees Celsius. 10 degrees sounds cold, however you want your body to stay cool while running. This allows the body to properly sweat (to allow for adequate cooling), while preventing the body from becoming overheated. Overheating is the enemy. This also prevents the athlete from getting dehydrated. The less you sweat, the less you dehydrate.
This marathon was run in nearly the worst conditions you could ask for. 30 degrees Celsius and 80% humidity, these athletes would have been unbelievably uncomfortable. Many would have never raced in conditions like this, and it would be extremely unlikely that they would have done much training in this type of weather. Some countries had their marathoners do a training camp just before the Olympics in an area that would have similar weather to practice proper hydration, and acclimatize to the heat and humidity (Australia, as an example, had a training camp in Cairns, Australia, to better simulate the conditions in Sapporo, where this marathon was held).
Racing in conditions like this means that the athletes are going to be feeling fatigued earlier in the race than they would otherwise. The winner has a personal best (and world record) of 2:01:39. He won this race in 2:08:38. Many athletes ran well slower than their personal bests due to the conditions (however Olympic long distance events are usually more tactical, slower starting and faster finishing, as there is a greater chance of not finishing the race if you start too fast. This is why Olympic Records in distance events are often much slower than World Records). Amdouni quickly fell off from the pace he was running at after 30k, averaging about 15:27 per 5k for the first 30k, and staying within 5 seconds of the leaders. His next 5k split is 16:25, while the leader ran 14:28. This is known as "going out too hard". He didn't quite blow up (when a runner has been running much too fast for the first portion of the race, and then slows down a lot for the remaining portion), but it's pretty close. The incident in question occurs at the 28.3k mark.
From the information above, I think we can assume that he was running right at his limit, and even a bit beyond what he was capable of. He is very fatigued at this point in the race. For those of you who haven't run long distances near your limit, your brain stops working properly. Simple math gets difficult to do as all of your concentration is going into just keeping your legs moving forward in a straight line.
Earlier in the race we saw another athlete slow down, stumble to the side of the course, fall over as if he was drunk, hit his head against a guard rail. He then got back up and continued running at his previous pace while smacking his forehead multiple times in succession. He laid down on the side of the road a few minutes later, and pulled out of the race. The heat and fatigue together are a bad combination. They don't lend well to motor skill precision.
That sets the stage a bit for the rest of the post.
Speed. I have seen a lot of people say that it "isn't that hard to pick up a water bottle from a table, even if you are running fast". I would hazard a guess that none of these people have actually ran "fast" compared to what these athletes are running, and I can't claim I have either. They passed by the 8m long table in less than 1 second. Their average pace per kilometer at this point is 3:05 per kilometer (5 minute mile). Most people aren't able to keep that pace for half a mile, let alone a full one. To trivialize the difficulty of picking up a water bottle from the table at this pace is simply ignorant.
A few years ago they set up a treadmill at the Chicago Marathon to see how long people could keep up with the world record pace. Unsurprisingly, it usually doesn't last long for most people. It is a a FAST pace, a sprint for most people.
The athletes in front of him seem to have no problems taking a drink off of the table. However, this is not completely true. After watching the video closely, you can see that the runner in front of Amdouni actually knocks over a water bottle while picking his up. This is difficult to see, but it falls away from the runners, onto the table. At another point in the race, the eventual Bronze medalist Bashir Abdi tries to pick up a bottle from a table and knocks it off, tries again and knocks the last 5 bottles off of the table, and doesn't get any water from that station. Other athletes during the race had difficulty grabbing their own water bottles that were being held out to them.
Water stations at marathons are a messy affair. Athletes are weaving in and out trying to get their water bottles, trying not to trip anyone else, and trying not to trip themselves. There are a lot of bodies, legs, and elbows flying around, usually in a large, bunched up group of people moving at speed. There is never a guarantee that things will go smoothly. People miss grabbing their water bottles all the time in marathons. It is not an uncommon occurrence. I have never seen someone knock this many bottles off of the table, but if it was common, we wouldn't be talking about it. I'll agree that this is extremely uncommon, and very unusual. But again, there are more factors that contribute to this event. The water bottles were wet. I originally thought that the bottles had condensation on them, but later learned that they were kept in water to keep them cool. Wet bottles are obviously more difficult to grab than dry bottles.
Physics, poor technique, and positioning. A lot of people seem to focus on the fact that Amdouni was able to get the last water bottle in the row. I do have an explanation for this, however I'm not married to it. The other athletes seem to use a different technique to Amdouni when trying to grab the bottle. They all seem to pull the bottle up and off the table to the side. Amdouni looks like he is trying to pull the bottle up and forwards. This causes the bottom of the bottle in his hand to hit the top of the next bottle, which knocks the original bottle out of his hands. Cue a chain reaction for the next few bottles as they fall over, and he can't get a good grip on any of them. He then tries to grab another bottle on the table a few times, but his outstretched arm (outstretched because he is trying to stay out of the way of the runner that is just behind him on the inside, because remember, water stations at marathons are a a messy affair) can't get a good hold on any of the bottles, and the same thing occurs. His fingertips then brush across about half a dozen bottles, knocking them over. This is why the entire clip looks like it is deliberate.
There is nothing after the last bottle. He is in a better position at that point to be able to grab it, and he successfully does.
Lack of benefit. This is where we get a little out of what happened, and start getting into Amdouni's head. The whole field had passed quite a few water stations at this point, and they were certainly told by the race organizers what the water setup for the race would be before it started. Large marathons usually have a section of Elite water bottles (handed to the runners by their coaches/support staff, or set on individual tables for them to grab), followed by general water bottle tables (one of which is the focus of this video). As soon as the video cuts out, Amdouni moves to his left (away from the water tables), and there is another table of general water bottles for anyone to use. Every single athlete in this pack gets water either before Amdouni knocks the bottles off the table, or at this second water table.
There is absolutely no benefit to Amdouni doing this intentionally. He knows there are cameras on the lead group the entire race, he knows that people would see it, and he knows that there is another table of water that people can use. So why would he only knock the bottles off of this table, if his intent was to damage other people's races?
"It was an irrational and impulsive moment from Amdouni, it doesn't need to be logical. As soon as he had completed his selfish act, the moment was over". I would agree, were it not for all of the above evidence above that points to it being accidental. One of the explanations above doesn't seem very convincing when viewed alone, however when there is one body of evidence that is small, and another body of evidence that is very large, I would expect most people to believe the larger body of evidence that explains the most variables.
I can understand why someone would think that it was intentional based off of the video clip alone. It certainly looks intentional. But in the context of marathoning, and especially the context of this marathon, I believe that this action was completely accidental. Should he have been more careful? Absolutely. Was it a clumsy thing to do? Yes, water bottles underfoot at the speeds they are going at are a recipe for twisted ankles and ruined races, and it did have the potential to leave athletes without water if they were unable to grab a bottle from the following table. But I believe the evidence shows his innocence.
The explanation Amdouni gave line up with what people coming to his defense were saying days before he released it.
Happy to discuss with anyone who has questions about the incident.
Pot meet kettle.
I can’t believe you guys actually get some people with your crap posts.
baetn wrote:
Sprintgeezer wrote:
And you are part of the problem: a fvcking puszy.
Great comeback. Right on level with your subpar IQ, big keyboard warrior.
It was right on the level of the post to which it responded—something the first poster (you) could understand.
baetn wrote:
Sprintgeezer wrote:
And you are part of the problem: a fvcking puszy.
Great comeback. Right on level with your subpar IQ, big keyboard warrior.
He wouldn't be such a tough guy face to face.
But he constantly pollutes this message board with this pseudo macho crap.
Yup regular keyboard warrior.