Paula Radcliffe appeared to agree with Faith Kipyegon’s disqualification after a controversial women’s 5,000m Olympic final in Paris, with the Kenyan athlete grabbing Gudaf Tsegay’s arm towards the end of the race.
Kipyegon – the former 5,000m world-record holder – clashed with Tsegay with around two laps remaining at the Stade de France, which resulted in the former losing her silver medal.
Beatrice Chebet managed to steer clear of the trouble to claim gold with a time of 14:28:56, while Sifan Hassan’s bronze medal was upgraded to a silver.
The Kenyan’s disqualification saw Nadia Battocletti promoted into the medal positions, with the Italian joining Chebet and Hassan on the podium to collect bronze.
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Replays of the controversial incident appeared to show Ethiopia’s Tsegay cutting in front of Kipyegon and the Kenyan responded by taking a hold of her rival’s arm – momentarily throwing her off balance.
When the official results were unveiled on the big screen inside the stadium, Kipyegon was disqualified with a code of TR17.1.2[O], indicating a World Athletics rule against obstruction.
‘Kipyegon pushed her out first, that’s what she’s disqualified for. Tsegay did cut in too quickly but only after Faith had tried to push her out wide,’ former British Olympian Radcliffe said on BBC Sport.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another counter-protest.
‘You can’t grab hold of someone’s arm and tell them to stay out. You can warn with your hand, people will do that when you can feel someone’s going to cut in.
‘You can put your arm out and just warm them – but you can’t grab hold of their arm and physically move them.’
Radcliffe said Kipyegon took it ‘a little bit too far’ in her tussle with Tsegay and felt it was a ‘shame’ to see the Kenyan athlete disqualified for what she viewed as an unnecessary move.
‘You almost need to [push other athletes] from a safety point of view because if you’re going to hit the track, that’s far more devastating and dangerous for the race,’ the three-time London Marathon winner added.
‘So be able to warn someone, “Hey, you’re stepping into my space, this is my space and my stride needs to go there. You’re not going there”, you’re allowed to do that.
‘You’re allowed to sometimes get away with accidentally grabbing someone if you’re actually falling. But to actually grab hold of their arm and move them wide… I think that’s why the DQ has gone in.
‘It’s a real shame because it didn’t need to be done. She could have responded by accelerating, by just putting out her hand.
‘But instead, she’s gone a little bit too far and then Tsegay has responded by cutting back in and perhaps burned a little bit of her nervous adrenaline that was ready to go over that final 800m or so and that’s later cost her dearly in the race.
‘The good thing is that we can say that the actual Olympic champion [Chebet], who ran a phenomenal race, you can absolutely applaud the way she did that. She was not involved in any way and managed to stay clear of it and nobody went down.’
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