The European Athletics Championship takes places every two years and took place in Berlin, Germany, from August 7-12.
Although Sunday was the final day of competition in the tournament, there were still events taking place as medals still needed to be handed out. One of those events was the women’s 5,000-metre race. Israel’s Lonah Chemtai Salpeter was in a good spot to take home a medal heading into the final lap of the race, but that all changed in a couple of seconds in a way that left her heartbroken.
The 29-year-old Israeli athlete stopped running too soon thinking the race was over, only to realize there was still one more lap to go. Not only did it take her out of contention to win the gold medal, but she also fell outside the podium standing and finished fourth overall, but was later disqualified and bumped out of the rankings.
It’s every runner’s nightmare and it happened to her in the most important moment of the race. She didn’t go home entirely empty-handed and brokenhearted as she managed to win the gold medal in the 10,000-metre race.
(H/T Twitter/EuroSportUK)
