Kenyan Runner Loses Prague 10K After A TV Car Led Him The Wrong Way

Victor Kipruto Kiprono had the Birell 10K Night Race in Prague won on Saturday night, right up until he followed a television car off the course with the finish in sight. By the time he was back on track, he was third. The organizers have since apologized, said they will pay him as though he had won, but have also confirmed that the official result is not changing.

Rodrigue Kwizera crossed first in 27:15, a second ahead of Owen Korir Kapkama and three ahead of Kiprono. Prague was Kwizera’s first race since Spain granted him citizenship in May, and 27:15 took 10 seconds off the Spanish record that Saïd Mechaal ran in Valencia in January. Mechaal was in the field on Saturday and finished ninth in 27:59. Kwizera, born in Burundi and living in Spain since 2019, is the runner who went through Madrid in 26:01 on a plunging downhill course last year, the quickest 10K anyone has run and one no record book will take.

At races of this level the timing clock, the television cameras and the photographers all travel ahead of the field, and each of those vehicles turns off the road at a set point a few dozen meters short of the line. Jiří Nečásek, RunCzech’s communications director, said the car had come off where it was meant to, and that the elite field had been taken through the layout of the finish in detail at the technical briefing. What nobody could fix in the moment was that Kiprono, on a dark street, was running inside the car’s lights and went where it went.

“We spoke with Victor right after the race,” Jana Moberly, RunCzech’s elite athletes coordinator, said in a statement the organizers issued Monday. “Naturally, he was upset, but he also admitted his own mistake, where he saw the gate, but as he was illuminated by the TV car, he ran automatically behind it.”

Carlo Capalbo, president of the RunCzech organizing committee, went to apologize to Kiprono in person after the race. Kiprono will be paid as if he had won of the race, according to the statement, and the organizers say they have started reviewing how support vehicles are handled around the exit zones at their upcoming events. “We regret all the more that this unfortunate situation occurred amidst final exhaustion and a fast sprint,” Nečásek said.

The results are another matter. Citing World Athletics Technical Rule 55, which RunCzech says makes every athlete personally responsible for completing the full race course, the organizers said the official standings have to “reflect the approved course and the order in which the runners crossed the line,” meaning Kwizera keeps the win.

In March, three women leading the U.S. Half Marathon Championships in Atlanta were sent the wrong way at an intersection where the cones had not been put back, and finished ninth, 12th and 13th. Atlanta Track Club paid them $39,500 between them, $20,000 of it to Jess McClain, the winner’s share, and the results stayed as they were.

USATF went further, naming McClain co-champion and asking World Athletics to recognize her for World Championships selection. World Athletics called the case unprecedented and allowed the United States to enter seven women rather than four at the World Road Running Championships, NPR reported, while describing the arrangement as strictly a one-off. Those championships open in Copenhagen on Sept. 19.

Senbere Teferi got nothing of the sort. She lost the 2023 Peachtree Road Race the same way, following the lead vehicle instead of the finish chute with meters to run and going from first to third, a $7,000 swing, CNN reported at the time. Running a course short is the version of this the rulebook handles cleanly, and MH covered a Modesto Marathon winner disqualified this year for doing it.

Kiprono accepted the apology, according to RunCzech, and told the organizers he plans to come back to Prague next year and win it.