Video: Kenyan athlete forgets water jump in steeplechase final, loses gold medal

In a bizarre turn of events, Kenyan athlete Beatrice Chepkoech seemingly forgot one of the most important obstacles in the steeplechase final at the IAAF World Athletics Championships 2017 held in London.

In the video, you can see that the race starts smoothly but almost immediately Beatrice continues to run along the classic course of the track at the bend where all her other competitors take the steeplechase inside lane one.

Having realised her inexplicable mistake, the Kenyan female athlete is forced to turn back and head towards the start of the steeplechase yet again. This lost her vital time and a huge amount of distance from the rest of the pack.

What is possibly even more surprising is the fact that despite this massive error, Chepkoech actually managed to finish a respectable fourth in the race, an achievement which looked impossible when her brain fade took place.

It is not often that an athlete performs such comical and disastrous actions and it is especially rare in a final of this magnitude. The bewildered crowd sure saw the funny side of it eventually however and since the incident occurred, social media has been buzzing about the "epic fail" of one of Kenya's top track and field athletes.

Many have even gone to the extent of saying that she could have won the race had it not been for the error in judgment which ultimately cost her a podium finish at one of the biggest events of the year. She must, however, take solace in the fact that she recovered brilliantly to eventually finish fourth.