British middle-distance runner is involved in a home straight pile up in Paris but is reinstated due to video referee’s leniency
George Mills will run in the Olympic 5000m final on Friday despite falling in the home straight of his heat and getting into a trackside spat with Frenchman Hugo Hay.
Mills and Hay clashed with 90m to go and as Mills was thrown out into lane two he brought down other athletes, although the Briton was soon reinstated into the final along with Dominic Lobalu, Mike Foppen and Thierry Ndikumwenayo, who had also been caught up in the melee.
To add to the chaos, Mo Ahmed, the Canadian who was fourth in the 10,000m final at these Games, tripped with a lap to go and wound up 16th.
As tempers rose, Mills and Hay exchanged angry words when Mills accused the French athlete of stepping out in front of him.
Hay stayed on his feet to qualify in seventh in a race won by Narve Gilje Nordas of Norway in a slow 14:08.16. “There was a big collision,” said Hay, “it’s not me, somebody pushed me, something happened, I turned around and everyone was on the floor so I hope it’s not me. I feel really good.”
George Mills (Getty)
Mills didn’t even have to file an official protest as the video referee qualified the athletes due to level they were disadvantaged and still finished.
It raises the question of why a large field of 19 men were allowed to run each of the two heats instead of holding three races with fewer athletes in each heat.
Mills said: “It looks like my path was maybe stopped. Mo Ahmed went down with 800m to go and I just about managed to hurdle him, so I thought I’d got away with one there, but then going into the home straight on the last lap, I was tucked in on the inside, where I wanted to be, because I knew some sort of gap would open up. It did and I was ready to put my foot down and all of a sudden, boom, I hit the deck.”
Mills, who had been knocked out of the 1500m semi-finals earlier in the Games, added: “I was ready to go. If we look at the top pace of the race, it was playing into a 1500m guys hands, so that was my plan. Get around the whole race, sit in and don’t waste any energy, get into the last 100m, doesn’t matter if you are 10th or 12th, you will be able to come past.
“We executed that to the point, and I was ready to execute that last little bit, but that got taken out of my control unfortunately.”
Mills’ team-mate Patrick Dever finished 13th in the same race. “I did everything I…
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