A camera captures a moment where a Spanish racewalker missed out on a bronze medal due to her premature celebration.
At the 2024 European Athletics Championships’ women’s 20km racewalk final, held in Rome, Italy, on the 7th, Spanish racewalker Laura Garcia-Caro began celebrating a bit too early at the end of the race and was overtaken.
Overwhelmed with excitement, Garcia-Caro failed to notice her competitor catching up from behind. With only a few feet left, she was caught up by Ukraine’s Lyudmila Olyanovska.
Garcia-Caro tried to sprint to catch her competitor, but it was too late. Both finished in 1 hour, 28 minutes, and 48 seconds, but Olyanovska crossed the finish line just a moment earlier.
It was the first bronze medal for Olyanovska after a four-year suspension due to a doping violation.
“I was tired in the last kilometer and the last meters, but I wanted to win this medal for my country so much,” she said. “Nowadays, there is a war in Ukraine. We train under very difficult conditions. I do not know if my five-year-old son saw me competing today because the infrastructure is broken in Ukraine. They do not have electricity, internet, or light, so I do not know if he saw me on the TV.”
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