While you were sleeping, there was quite the commotion at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
During the second heat of the men’s 5000m qualifying round on Wednesday, August 7, a cameraman carried his filming equipment as he casually walked toward the athletes.
As the runners rounded the bend on the track, the camera operator got closer — until he halted in place, realizing his mistake. In footage from the race, Norwegian runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen swerved behind the cameraman to miss his path.
The mishap quickly went viral on social media. “The cameraman just walked through the 5000m race what the actual hell,” one user wrote via X on Wednesday alongside footage from the comPetition, while another added, “WHAT ON EARTH?!?!? Cameraman just standing on the track during the middle of the 5000m. Jakob Ingebrigtsen has to go wide to avoid him.”
the cameraman just walked through the 5000m race what the actual hell 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/q91U43kyFA
— lauren🪿 (@speaklaur) August 7, 2024
During the final stretch of the race, American runner Abdihamid Nur fell and finished last.
After the race concluded, Ingebrigtsen called the incident “amateurish.” (Ingebrigtsen finished first in the heat, with Ethiopia’s Biniam Mehary and Belgium’s Isaac Kimeli rounding out the top three.)
“That should not happen in an Olympics,” he said, per the Daily Mail. “I was just far enough out in front to see that something or the other is happening. He has quite a large camera rig. He realized it quite quickly, but the damage is done. For some, their race is ruined.”
The cameraman mishap wasn’t the only incident that raised eyebrows on Wednesday. During the first heat of the race, a massive runner crash caused a four-man pile up.
After the race, Britain’s George Mills pointed his finger in France’s Hugo Hay face.
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When asked about his interaction with Hay, Mills said, “I’m probably not allowed to say.”
While Mills placed 18th in the race, the referee sent him and the three others involved in the crash into the final. Hay automatically advanced because he placed seventh in the race.
