Guillaume Marion, Media365: published on Sunday January 15, 2023 at 2:20 pm
This Sunday’s start of the 10km of Valencia was one of the most chaotic in Spain with a collective crash at the start that affected many of the race’s participants.
“It fell, it fell, it fell…” These are the words of Alice Finot when discussing the abysmal start of the 10km of Valence, which had more than 12,000 starting numbers. In fact, the start of the contested race in Spain this Sunday was disrupted by an impressive collective fall from the first meters. As shown in a video posted to the social network Twitter, a fall suffered by one of the participants had a snowball effect on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula. This problem passed, this race saw the Kenyan Weldon Langat win in the men’s in 26’55”, while the Ethiopian Yalemzerf Yehualaw did very well in the women’s (win in 29’18”). The latter was not far from her own world record, namely 29’14”, set in 2022 in Castellon. At the end of this 10 km from Valence, the Frenchman Finot came back on this impressive collective fall.
The organization pointed out
“Thank God it’s good!” But I saw many girls burnt, as if they were crushed to the ground after a fall from a bicycle. Fortunately I had no contact with the concrete, I was entangled. The organization was wrong. They released the amateur airlock too early, people rushed to the line. Security moved in front of them to make way for the elites in front, but at first it exploded. There was a wave, it fell, it fell, it fell. The starting line was not wide enough. People come to get a timer, there is no respect anymore. Everyone thinks about their short time after doing their little workout,” explained the CA Montreuil 93 licensee, finalist in the 3,000m steeplechase at the Eugene Worlds last summer, in comments collected by AFP.
