BUDAPEST (Nettavisen): There was rare WC drama as Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands and Guday Tsegay of Ethiopia ran for gold in the women’s 10,000 meters final in Budapest on Saturday night.

About 20 meters from the finish, Hassan fell forward and thus not only lost the gold – but fell completely off the podium.

– I am surprised. I couldn’t even get up to run, he told NRK.

Based on the replays, it’s not easy to see whether Tsegay contributed to Hassan’s downfall or whether he can blame himself for it.

– A bit difficult to judge, commented NRK expert Vebjørn Rodal.

For now, Tsegay is the winner of the competition.

Compatriots Letesenbet Gidey and Ejgayehu Taye capitalized on Hassan’s fall and secured silver and bronze respectively.

Hassan himself seemed to be taking it all with impressive composure, despite the fact that he crashed just before the finish line after just over half an hour of running.

– What can I say? It can happen in sports. There’s always some drama going on. I felt good in the last 200 meters,” Hassan told NRK.

– I am very sad and very disappointed, said the Dutchman.

Hassan won Olympic gold in the 5,000 and 1,000 meters in Tokyo in 2021. He also became world champion in the 1,500 and 10,000 meters in Doha.

Just minutes later – in Saturday’s final practice, the same thing happened again for the Dutch women’s and men’s 4x400m teams.

– Haven’t seen anything like it in all my years in the sport! Two Dutch athletes fell several meters from the gold medalist. One immediately after the other! “Crazy”, wrote track and field legend Michael Johnson on X of the extraordinary event.

In the duel with USA for gold, Femke Bol fell just ten meters from the goal – and lost the baton, so that the Netherlands did not get a valid result – although they managed to reach the finish line.

At the same time, the Americans set a new world record in the exercise with a time of 3:08.80. Great Britain took second place, while the Czech Republic secured bronze.