The women's 10,000m race at the European Athletics Championships was filled with a lot of drama, but not for the reasons fans might imagine. The competition, which offered an opportunity for runners to qualify for the Paris Olympics, ran into some organizational issues, resulting in chaos on the track.
The race began with a misstep, as the starting pistol failed to go off. Then, the pistol once went off when it wasn't supposed to, before failing to work again when it was required to. This incident set the tone for the rest of the race, which failed to go smoothly.
Overall the race had 33 participants, a large number that led to confusion once the leaders had lapped the back of the pack. Additionally, there was no water and sponges available for runners, and officials failed to keep track of how many laps each competitor had completed towards the end of the race.
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Reaction to this badly managed race, fans on X were quick to start a discussion, with one fan writing,
“It did look like lapped runners were trying to race the leaders .. I wonder if that caused confusion."
Another fan called the whole ordeal embarrassing, simply writing,
“Embarrassing”
Here is how other fans reacted to the disorganized women's 10,000m race at the European Athletics Championships.
“Lapped runners with the leaders in those last 2 laps - bonkers! Why weren't there 2 races (A&B like the mens tomorrow) as originally planned?” one fan wrote.
“The organization, including behind the scenes, of the entire championships has been a disgrace in parts and utterly shambolic. People need to be held accountable at the highest level,” another added.
“I wondered what was going on with the lapped runners, hard to tell watching on TV. The start alone looked a mess. No water is shocking,” one X user commented.
“I've never seen such an army of runners enter the track, it looked like they combined two races into one. Big mistake,” yet another netizen chimed in.
European Athletics Championships 2024: Nadia Battocletti storms to 10,000m gold
While the women's 10,000m race might have been badly organized, that didn't stop Italy’s Nadia Battocletti from storming to gold in a national record time of 30:51.32. This comes days after the youngster won the 5,000m earlier in the European Athletics Championships.
With this, Battocletti is now the Italian record holder in the indoor 3,000m, the 5k road race, the two-mile, and the 10,000m.
Behind Battocletti, Dutchwoman Diane Van Es took the silver medal with a personal best of 30:57.24, while Great Britain’s Megan Keith won bronze with a time of 31:04.77.
The women's 10,000m at the European Athletics Championships saw some impressive performances even outside of the podium finishers. Federica Del Buono, Klara Lukan, Elisa Palmero, Jasmijn Lau, and Nina Chydenius, who finished fourth to eighth, respectively, clocked new personal bests in this race.
