A wrong turn at this week’s U.S. Half Marathon Championships in Atlanta has turned out to be a much more shocking series of events than initially thought.
Now, race organizers are making things right with the women who were led off course — a mistake that potentially cost them thousands of dollars — and revealing what went wrong during Sunday’s race.
American track star Jess McClain was holding a sizable lead more than an hour into the race and had under two miles left to run when she followed a lead vehicle down the wrong street.
The athlete ran roughly 400 metres off course, according to Athletics Illustrated, and needed to run a further 400 metres to return to the proper route.
McClain wasn’t the only runner caught up in the confusion, either, as Emma Grace Hurley and Ednah Kurgat also followed the wrong path.
The error was a massive one, particularly for McClain, who seemed likely to secure the title of U.S. national champion and take home a prize of US$20,000.
Instead, she finished in ninth place while Hurley and Kurgat came in 12th and 13th, respectively.
However, after an in-depth investigation into the incident, the Atlanta Track Club — the event’s organizer — has detailed exactly what went awry during that fateful final stretch, including an emergency response to a downed police officer.
What happened to cause the chaotic finish?
According to the statement, 13 minutes before the group of three women reached the intersection, “a report of an officer down was broadcast across the assigned Atlanta Police Department frequency. The officer was reported to be down one block from the race course.”
The intersection where the officer was reported down was surrounded on three sides by the race course and there were no immediate details on the cause of the officer’s distress.
“As per their training, the police personnel assigned to the race responded to aid the officer down and to support the arrival of additional first responders around and through the race course.
“This action left a number of key race intersections, including the one where the wrong turn occurred, unattended for a brief period.”
The statement said that police then covered the vacated area with “personnel who would help keep runners safe while helping first responders through the intersection to reach the officer down.”
However, while the lead vehicle driver knew the course was to continue over the footbridge, because the intersection and the traffic cones had not been reset due to the arrival of emergency vehicles, the driver followed a police motorcycle off course in the belief that the race was being rerouted.
“The backfilled officer at that intersection, who was not assigned to the race, did not know that the race’s lead vehicles were going to use a footbridge that does not normally allow cars on it, so was not equipped to prevent the wrong turn.”
This led the chaos of the three athletes being forced to backtrack to the course, costing them valuable time and energy, and dropping them down the finishing order.
Did the women get paid their prize money?
The Atlanta Track Club apologized to the affected runners in its statement, pledging to match the prize money from the race with McClain taking home the $20,000 she would have collected had she won.
Hurley and Kurgat also will earn some prize money, pocketing an even split of the second- and third-placed rewards of $12,000 and $7,500, as they were level at the time of the incident.
After the race, Atlanta Track Club CEO Rich Kenah had taken “full responsibility” for the error.
“In the women’s race, a pace vehicle left the official course during Mile 11,” Kenah said in a statement to The Athletic. “As race director, I take full responsibility for what occurred. Athletes should never have to make a split-second decision between following a pace vehicle or trusting the official course. We are conducting a full review to determine exactly how and why the vehicle left the course to strengthen safeguards moving forward.”
However, McClain still stands to miss out on her automatic spot in the World Road Running Championships, which she would have earned with a victory.
Who crossed the finish line first?
Molly Born ended up winning the race and qualifying for the championships after having been more than a minute behind McClain before the leader’s wrong turn.
Speaking with Fast Women after the race, Born said that she doesn’t “feel like the U.S. champion.”
“It wasn’t my best race,” she said. “The end was pretty crazy. I don’t really feel like the U.S. champion just because of the whole situation that went down at the end.”
She added that she was shocked to cross the finish line first, joking that she thought it was funny that organizers would put tape out for a fourth-place finisher.