Two marathon frontrunners took the wrong path. Another runner sprinted to the finish and won.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Morning Mix

Two marathon frontrunners took the wrong path. Another runner sprinted to the finish and won the $3,000 prize.

By Andrea Salcedo
Today at 6:33 a.m. EDT

Elijah Mwangangi Saolo and Luke Kibet were so far ahead of the other runners as they sprinted through the final stretch of the annual Quad Cities Marathon on Sunday that something had to go extremely wrong for the pair to lose the first and second places, the Quad-City Times reported.

It did.

Instead of following the designated track, Saolo and Kibet followed a marathon volunteer who mistakenly led both runners off the route, automatically disqualifying the two Kenyans from the 26.2-mile run that begins and ends in downtown Moline, Ill.

Their loss was Tyler Pence’s win.

Pence, the head track and cross-country coach at the University of Illinois Springfield, witnessed everything unfolding and saw his opening. He stuck to the marathon’s path, becoming the first U.S. runner since 2001 to win the race.

{snip}

By Andrea Salcedo
Andrea Salcedo is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. Before joining The Post in 2020, she covered breaking news and features for the New York Times metro desk. Twitter https://twitter.com/andreapsalcedo

[brush]

1. An investigation is in order. Somebody might've wanted the local boy to win over...

two leading Kenyan runners.

[marble falls]

3. He waren't no Ioway home boy, he was an Illinoian.

[brush]

4. An American then. Race monitors are there to not let...

that happen. Sure seems like somebody pulled a fast one.

[underpants]

2. Well that sucks.

Having run a few, it’s usually very well marked. I tend to be sucking wind terribly at the end but it’s kinda hard to not follow where to go.

[brush]

5. Not if someone appearing to be a monitor leads you the wrong way.

That needs to be investigated.

Makes one wonder if a bit of racism was involved too in whitebread Iowa.