The 13-minute crisis: How a struck officer led to the wrong turn at the US Half Marathon Championships
Atlanta Track Club will pay out $39,500 in extra prize money after a fallen police officer resulted in leaders going off-course
By Jonathan Gault
The story of how the three women’s leaders at the 2026 US Half Marathon Championships in Atlanta on Sunday were led off course by the lead vehicles during the final mile has captured the public’s attention in a way unlike most races of its stature. Everyone from People to the New York Post, to the New York Times has covered the story.
In the two days following the event, the Atlanta Track Club (ATC) conducted an internal investigation to determine the cause of the mishap. On Tuesday, the ATC released the findings of its investigation and LetsRun.com conducted an interview with ATC CEO Rich Kenah, who walked us through all of it.
So what happened at mile 12?
It turns out there was a reason why things went astray — just one block away from the intersection where the wrong turn occurred, a police officer working the race was struck by a car five minutes before the first racers approached. The officer in charge of managing the intersection where the wrong turn was eventually made rushed to help their fallen colleague, without putting out traffic cones that were intended to keep the lead vehicles on course. Kenah said the cones were meant to be laid out in the next three minutes before the lead men came by, but they were not put out so that emergency vehicles could navigate the intersection.
At the intersection in question, where Nelson Road meets Ted Turner Drive, athletes are meant to continue straight and cross over a pedestrian footbridge. That is what happened with the men’s athletes, who passed through three minutes after the officer who was meant to manage the intersection departed. But ten minutes later, the three women’s lead vehicles — a police officer on a motorcycle, a car with a pace clock on top, and a media motorcycle — turned left instead of going straight over the bridge.
The lead women’s vehicle makes the wrong turn
By that time, another officer had arrived to guide first responders through the intersection but that officer was not part of the race detail and had nothing to do with making sure the athletes ran the proper route. With no cones blocking the left turn, the women’s lead vehicles turned left and did not continue straight over the pedestrian bridge. After the race, the driver of the pace car explained he thought he was being actively led off course as he was aware of an emergency in the area.
Kenah said he personally did a course drive-through with the driver of the pace car seven days before the race and said the driver knew the course was meant to go straight at that point in normal circumstances.
“We believe that [the lead police motorcycle] and then our pace vehicle, because the cones were not spread as they normally would be and because you do not normally drive across that footbridge, believed that that was where he needed to go. And because it was also moving in the opposite direction of where the emergency was,” Kenah said.
“…[The pace vehicle driver] is instructed in the race that you follow the course no matter what, but because the cones weren’t there, because he had some basic understanding that there was some emergency happening, he believed that he was being actively moved off of the course. So that’s why he followed.”
Everything happened very quickly / Atlanta Track Club will make athletes whole
The officer was struck at 8:05 a.m. The first report of the officer being struck was broadcast by Atlanta PD at 8:07. The lead men came by at 8:10. At 8:20, the officer was loaded into an ambulance and taken to a local hospital (Kenah said he was treated for a concussion and released the same day). 8:20 is also when the lead women made the wrong turn.
“I continue as the race director to take responsibility for what happened here,” Kenah said. “But I hope that people who are following the race, the unfortunate incident, and people that are expressing empathy for the three women that were impacted take the time to look at the circumstances around this crazy 13-minute period and acknowledge that this was almost a textbook response by emergency management personnel tending to the unknown of an officer down – in an area that is surrounded on three sides by almost 11,000 runners at the time – and managed to keep all of those runners safe, treat this officer and have him transported within 13 minutes.
“Unfortunately there are three women that have an understandable disappointment with the Atlanta Track Club. And I’m doing my best and this organization is doing its best to acknowledge this happened on our watch and that we need to show them that we understand and appreciate and celebrate their performances.”
The Atlanta Track Club announced Tuesday that it will pay Jess McClain — who was leading the race at the time of the incident but finished 9th in the official results after running nearly 1000 meters extra — the first-place prize money of $20,000. Emma Grace Hurley and Ednah Kurgat, who were shoulder-to-shoulder in 2nd and 3rd, will split the combined total owed to second and third place ($19,500 total, or $9,750 each). The official 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers will still get to keep their prize money.
What went wrong, visually
Cones were placed near the intersection of Nelson Road and Ted Turner Drive at 6 a.m. on race morning but were not put in position at that time as the road was to remain open to traffic until approximately 8:00 a.m. when runners came through. Kenah said the plan was for an officer to put the cones in place sometime between 8:05 and 8:10. But the cones were not placed at that time as officers responded to the fallen officer a block away.
The image below shows the pace car making the incorrect left turn. You can see the cones meant to block the left turn at the bottom and left of the image.
Hurley and Kurgat also turn left, approximately 8:20 a.m. Again, the cones are not in place yet.
The cones were moved into the correct places at 8:22 a.m. Below is what the intersection was meant to look like without the emergency interruption — with the two parallel sets of cones blocking off the left-hand turn and directing runners straight across the pedestrian bridge.
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Top finishers call for Team USA spots to be awarded to impacted athletes
Jessica McClain and Ednah Kurgat moments after crossing the finish line in ninth and 13th place, respectively (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)
Sunday’s race was also USATF’s selection event for the 2026 World Athletics Road Running Championships, to be held in Copenhagen in September. USATF’s selection policy states that the top three finishers earn berths on Team USA, with those berths being offered to the runners in fourth and fifth should any of the top three decline. Beyond that, USATF’s selection policy says berths should be determined based on athletes’ world rankings.
USATF has confirmed that the results from Sunday’s race are official. But the top three official finishers — Molly Born (1st), Carrie Ellwood (2nd), and Annie Rodenfels (3rd) have called for USATF to ignore its published procedures and offer the spots on Team USA to McClain, Hurley, and Kurgat.
“If a spot on the world team for Copenhagen is offered to me, I do not plan to take it regardless of who it goes to because I did not fairly earn it,” Born wrote on Instagram. “Here’s to hoping there can be changes to the rules in this exceptional circumstance so that there may be some justice for the runners who were wronged.”
Josh Cox, agent for Ellwood and Rodenfels, said that both athletes felt that USATF should name McClain, Hurley, and Kurgat to the team in their place.
“This is an opportunity for USATF to name Jess, Emma, and Ednah to Team USA,” Cox said. “Should any of them decline, Carrie and Annie would happily step in, be ready roll, and do our country proud.”
USATF said on Monday that it is continuing to review the incident in Atlanta.
“We are working to provide updates as quickly as we can as we explore options that not only align with USATF rules and policies but also provide fair outcomes for all the athletes impacted,” USATF said in a statement.
Kenah said the Atlanta Track Club has no input into team selection but offered an apology to the three women affected by the mistake.
“There is never a perfect race from an event organizer perspective,” Kenah said. “We chase perfection but we know that it may always be just beyond our reach. The operational acumen of the staff, volunteers and emergency management personnel involved in this race is second to none. I come out of this investigation with a new level of respect for this city’s first responders. I marvel at the work they did during this 13 minutes. I also lament the missed opportunity for Jess, Emma Grace and Ednah that resulted from this force-majeure-like happening. I am sorry.”
You can read the Atlanta Track Club’s full statement on its investigation here.
This wasn’t the first mishap in Atlanta
In addition to Sunday’s mishap, last year’s Atlanta Marathon course was also found to be 168 meters short after cones were misplaced due to unexpected construction. And at the 2023 Peachtree Road Race, race leader Senbere Teferi mistakenly followed a motorcycle escort off course in the final meters, costing her the win (though it is standard for lead vehicles to exit the course late in the race, and the finish line was within clear sight by this point). The Atlanta Track Club also organizes those two races; Kenah said he stood behind the performance of his staff and volunteers.
“The Track Club has a long history of hosting championship events, large road races, and of course marathons, whether that is our involvement in the 1996 [Olympic] Games to the Northside Hospital Peachtree Road Race, which is known as the world’s largest 10K, to the Olympic Trials in 2020, which were essentially tied to this same series of races on this weekend, I continue to believe that our staff and our volunteers and the emergency personnel here in Atlanta are as professional, as seasoned, and as experienced as anybody out there. And I reject any characterization that the Track Club and its staff performed poorly this weekend.”
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