Vienna City marathon winner Derara Hurisa was disqualified from the race after a discrepancy over his footwear.
The Ethiopian runner finished the race in a time of 2:09:22, which was just over a second shy of his 2020 personal best of 2:08:09, but his victory was short-lived. Less than an hour after crossing the finish line, Hurisa's winning title was taken away from him and handed to Kenya's Leonard Langat, who finished three seconds behind Hurisa, according to Reuters.
At issue is that Hurisa had worn shoes one centimeter (0.4 inches) thicker than the maximum 4 centimeters allowed. He had reportedly registered a different pair of shoes that were in compliance with the race rules but switched sneakers before the race.
Race coordinator Hannes Langer said there was no choice but to disqualify Hurisa.
"We also stressed in the technical meeting the rules about the shoes. Unfortunately, we had no other choice than disqualifying the athlete," Langer said. "It's the first time something like this has happened. I'm pretty sure that from now on there will be some form of checks to avoid something like this to happen again in a major race."
Commenting on his newfound victory, Langat admitted that he would have preferred to have been the first athlete to cross the finish line but was happy that he now held the winning title.
"Of course I would have preferred to have broken the tape," he said. "I had no clue about the disqualification until they told me. It was of course my aim to win and I thank God that in the end I did."
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Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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