Tshepiso Masalela ran the race of his life on Sunday. Then, somehow, he found a way to lose it.
The 26-year-old Botswana middle-distance runner crossed the finish line first at the Orlen Copernicus Cup in Torun, Poland, clocking 3:32.55 — a Botswana national record and a time that placed him 14th on the all-time indoor 1500m list, according to Track & Field Gazette. He had just made his indoor 1500m debut, and by any measure, it was going brilliantly.
Then came the gesture.
As Masalela ran down the homestretch, he directed an aggressive motion toward France’s Azeddine Habz, who was breathing down his neck just behind him. Officials weren’t impressed. They cited a violation of World Athletics Rule TR 7.1 — unsportsmanlike conduct — and wiped his result from the books entirely.
He appealed. They said no.
So Who Actually Won?
With Masalela out of the results, Azeddine Habz inherited the victory with a time of 3:32.56 — just 0.01 seconds slower than Masalela’s original mark, and the third-fastest indoor 1500m in the world so far this year. Samuel Chapple (3:32.68) and Samuel Pihlström (3:33.47) completed the podium, both setting national short-track records in the process.
World Athletics initially posted a congratulatory message on its website and shared footage of Masalela’s run. After backlash swept across social media, the video was quietly taken down. Nothing quite like celebrating a disqualification by accident.
Nobody has yet explained why Masalela made the gesture toward Habz in the first place.
It isn’t the first time a runner has been disqualified from a race for reasons beyond their performance on the track — though it’s rare for it to happen quite this dramatically, with the finish line already behind them.
A Tough Pill for a Runner Who’s Earned His Stripes
What makes the disqualification particularly galling is that Masalela is no flash-in-the-pan. He has earned his place on the international stage the hard way.
His 800m personal best of 1:42.70, set at last year’s Rabat Diamond League, puts him among the world’s elite in the event. At the 2023 Budapest World Championships, he reached the 800m final and finished sixth in one of the deepest fields in years. At the Paris Olympics, he made the final again, running 1:42.82 — good enough for seventh, in a race won by Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi in a blistering 1:41.19.
Sunday was supposed to be the start of something new — a fresh chapter in a new event, on a big stage, opening the season with a record. For about sixty seconds after crossing the line, it was exactly that.
Then it wasn’t.
What the Rules Say
World Athletics Rule TR 7.1 covers conduct during competition. It doesn’t get invoked often, but when it does, disqualification is the standard outcome. Athletes can appeal, as Masalela did — and occasionally win — but the bar is high once judges have made their call.
It sits within a broader set of unwritten and written codes of conduct that govern the sport, from recreational road races all the way up to the elite indoor circuit. Most runners never come close to crossing that line. Masalela crossed it — and then crossed the finish line.
For runners who grind through months of track training chasing national records and top-20 all-time marks, the episode is a painful lesson. Everything that happens between the last bend and the finish line counts — not just the clock.
Masalela’s national record still stands in the record books. It just won’t come with a race win attached to it.
