A Spanish race walker started celebrating close to the finish line, thinking she was about to win bronze at the 20-kilometer (12.4 mile) race at the European Athletic Championships only to be passed.
Laura García-Caro, 29, started fist-pumping with a Spanish flag wrapped around her neck, but coming up from behind was Ukrainian Lyudmila Olyanovska, 31, who caught her with around two meters (6.5 feet) to go.
“Oh my word she’s been caught. I can’t believe it,” the TV commentator said as it happened, per a clip posted on X by European Athletics.
“In the last lap, the truth is that I was giving everything, I was quite exhausted and in the end … I thought I already had it,” Garcia-Caro said according to Spain’s El Pais newspaper as translated into English.
She added that “I hope to learn from this mistake. Keep fighting, keep working and come back stronger next time.”
Some Spanish fans were outraged after watching slow motion footage, claiming that Olyanovska ran and had both feet in the air, a violation of race walking rules.
“It is a shame that the federation does not come out and complain to claim the bronze. Less sad faces and more fighting for our athletes. They beat us with tricks and we remain silent, a graphic definition of how they piss on us and we have to say that it is raining. Regrettable,” one fan, photographer Manu Laya, wrote on X as translated into English.
The Royal Spanish Athletics Federation did present a claim to request a sanction that, if successful, would have netted Garcia-Caro her bronze medal, but the race’s result was upheld according to Spain’s Cadena SER radio network.
Olyanovska, who won bronze at world championships for race walking in 2014 and silver in the 2014 European championships, previously served a four-year doping ban between 2015 and 2019 according to the Guardian.
