The emerging storyline of this year’s world championships has been the numerous disqualifications of notable athletes for minor lane and curb violations.
USA’s Colleen Quigley, who was a victim of this type of DQ at the 2017 World Championships in London, spoke out about the British officials being overzealous with their DQs at this year's indoor championships in Birmingham.
While the officials have the rightful argument that "rules are rules," this wasn’t the case a few months ago when their hometown favorite — Great Britain's Mo Farah — broke the same rules that countless others were disqualified for this weekend.
In the 2017 IAAF World Championship 10K final, Farah clearly stepped on the inside of the curb, but wasn’t disqualified. Now, for proper comparison, check out this side-by-side GIF of Farah and Chelimo tripping over themselves and taking one step on the inside of the curb.
A few notes:
- Both athletes take one step on the inside of the rail
- Both athletes don't gain a competitive advantage
- Both athletes aren’t touched by another competitor (see below for a closer look at Farah)
So why wasn’t Farah DQ’d for doing the exact same thing Chelimo did two days ago?
The world may never know . . .
