Olli Hoare Corrects the Record on Glasgow Incident as Australian Team Sheds Its Uniform

Olli Hoare said on Wednesday that he did not witness a murder in Glasgow, correcting an account that had circulated since the weekend and that reached print alongside advice from Australian team management for its athletes to train in plain clothes rather than the green and gold.

“No, no, I didn’t see a murder. The murder that was reported was six miles away and also at a different time,” Hoare said at Scotstoun Stadium, in comments reported by the Guardian and by AAP. He said he and his teammate Ky Robinson had run past officers breaking up a dispute, and that some of the people there “looked like they were carrying something.” Jake Wightman, the Scottish 1,500m runner staying in the same hotel as the Australian team, told the Guardian that Hoare had seen a man with a knife, and that two separate stories had since been welded together.

Police Scotland says it received a report around 3pm on Friday, July 24, of a man found seriously injured in the close of a block of flats on Burgher Street in Parkhead, in the city’s east end. Paul McMinigal, 44, was pronounced dead at the scene. Detective Chief Inspector Stephen McGrath, the senior investigating officer, has asked anyone who saw anything suspicious near Burgher Street or Parkhead Cross that afternoon to contact the force. No one has been charged.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Sunday that Hoare had run onto Burgher Street itself, and that team management had told athletes who train from the team hotel to go out in groups and leave the uniform behind. That advice followed two events rather than one. Alongside the murder inquiry, Police Scotland dealt with disorder on Saturday afternoon after demonstrations at Glasgow Green involving around 1,700 people, and made 15 arrests for offenses including assault and possession of offensive weapons. Australian officials said training in plain clothing on open roads is routine, and a team spokesperson said the team was “working closely with Glasgow 2026 to ensure the safety of our athletes, coaches and officials.”

Hoare left the uniform in his room the next day, saying he “didn’t want to bring attention to myself,” and that women on the team were in a different position when they ran through the city.

He was answering all of this minutes after climbing off the track. Hoare was clipped from behind in the first heat of the Commonwealth mile, went down, got up bleeding from his knees and finished in 4:06.84, far outside a qualifying place. He lodged a protest, and the track referee restored him to Saturday’s final. “I got back up and I kept competing because I’m representing my country and I’m the defending champ, so I’m not going to just walk off,” he told AAP.

The ruling used one half of a rule that has two. Under World Athletics’ Technical Rule 17.2, a referee who judges that an athlete was seriously affected by unintentional obstruction may advance that athlete to a subsequent round. The same rule states that where another athlete is found responsible for the obstruction, that athlete is liable to disqualification. Hoare was advanced. Tshepo Tshite of South Africa, identified by the Guardian as the athlete who tripped him, kept his own place in the final.

Josh Kerr won that first heat in 3:58.57 and arrives as world record holder, having run 3:42.66 in London on July 18. Cam Myers took the second heat in 3:53.85 from Wightman’s 3:54.05, both inside Kip Keino’s 3:55.34 from Kingston in 1966, the Games record that had stood since the last Commonwealth mile. Hoare’s Birmingham gold came over 1,500m in 3:30.12, an event Glasgow left off a slimmed-down program in favor of the mile, and Myers has since taken his Australian 1,500m record of 3:29.41 with 3:28.00 in Paris this month.

The men’s mile final is scheduled for Saturday evening at Scotstoun, on the closing night of the athletics program, and Hoare will run it in the green and gold.