Olympics 5,000m race 'ruined' after cameraman wanders in front of furious runners
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: X/@herrerandres4/Getty Images/Martin Bernetti
The men's 5,000m heats may well be the most controversial series of races in Olympic history.
The first heat saw five athletes fall on the final stretch and following the race, George Mills of Team GB aggressively pushes and points his finger in the face of Hugo Hay, of France.
Then, in the second heat, an idle cameraman is completely oblivious that an elite Olympic race is being run on the track as he wanders directly in the way of furious runners.
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All this in the preliminary rounds; it might not be ideal for the Olympians but it is definitely entertaining for us - I feel like I'm watching a soap.
There's a lot to unbox so we'll get straight into it.
You've most likely seen Mills, the son of former Manchester City soccer player Danny Mills, get into an altercation with the French athlete - but what was the reasoning for this?
Speaking to the BBC after the race, Mills said: "I mean, I think it’s pretty clear, I got stepped out on as I was about to kick in the home straight and boom. Yeah, French lad took me down.”
Mills was then asked what he had to say to his competitor afterwards, and replied: “I’m probably not allowed to say, but yeah, said I’d... yeah.”
The Olympic Committee also felt that Mills was hard done by and so reinstated him into the finals of the men's 5,000m race - which should be a cracker.
While a few eyebrows were raised then, some jaws dropped when it looked like there was going to be a huge collision between all 19 racers and a cameraman with just four laps to go.
If you're covering something as huge as the Olympics, you'd think you'd be aware when the events are on and when to cross the track.
Well, one camera operator almost caused a huge pile-up when crossing the track, but fortunately, he seemed to notice just at the right time - well, wrong time because he was in the way.
But he stopped moving, so he did the right thing in that situation.
A number of runners angrily gestured to the cameraman as they ran past him, including Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen - the odd's on favourite to pick up gold in the event.
Ingebrigtsen won the heat, with Ethiopia’s Biniam Mehary and Belgium’s Isaac Kimeli finishing up the top three.
“It’s amateurish,” Ingebrigtsen said after the race.
“That should not happen in an Olympics.
“I was just far enough out in front to see that something or the other is happening. He has quite a large camera rig. He realized it quite quickly, but the damage is done. For some, their race is ruined.”
Well, the men's 5,000m final looks to be a tasty one when it kicks off on Saturday, at 1.50pm ET.