Mantz pushed in to fence

This wasn't as egregious as when Bekele blocked Mo at the end of the narrowed Great North Course or when Solinsky got pushed off the track by Merga back in 2011 but reminiscent of both. It's the same in youth soccer in the U.S. When the better players are challenged, they'll just use elbows and other cheating tactics to get free. At the top levels of sport as well, it's not a pure, noble activity intended to determine who is the best of all, with no interference. You have to establish your position. That is part of the game. Just go back and look at Ovett in the 1980 Olympic 800m final to see how it goes. It's not all Chariots of Fire.

I just looked at the tik tok video which is much clearer. If you pause and play, you can see crystal clear that Mantz was along side him and the guy extended his arm and elbow right as they pass one of the stantions on the fence. A split second later you see Mantz arm go up as he tries fight him off. Definitely a DQ. How much room was there? Mantz was passing him like he was standing still on the inside...there was that much room. Punk move. Just like the dudes that run from lane 1 all the way to 4 to win a kick.

You obviously no nothing about racing. Look at a couple of clips of Joe Falcon being shoved to the ground. Btw the offender wasn't African smh

Too bad it resulted in a lost and even worse the light contact thru Connor of his stride. The same thing happened to me in a 800m race with 120 to go but it made me so mad I blasted the last 100m and won by 20-25 meters. It would have been GREAT karma had Connor been able to do the same.

Keep plugging along Connor and stay healthy your time is coming!

I think it adds excitement to the sport! More like Roller Derby. Would get way more viewers. And would add tot he tactics. When you pass someone you'd better be ready to really pass them!

This I can confirm. Having raced in both the US and Europe, European runners are insanely aggressive. The amount of elbowing, pushing, and shoving, even in road races, is unreal. In the U.S., people pretty much give you your own space to run and don’t try to turn it into a sort of running/boxing match combo.

It looks to me like Mantz made contact first.

Look at ALL of the video, frame by frame, making sure to zoom in the first few seconds when the runners are just coming into view. At the very beginning, when the video is zoomed out, Mantz' right arm makes contact first (00:01-00:02 of the TikTok video) coming in front of Yihune. Then their arms make incidental contact repeatedly with each stride. Finally, when they're closer to the camera, you see Yihune's left arm come in front of Mantz.

To me it looks like equal contact, with Mantz seeming to let off the gas, while Yihune holds his position stronger and fights on.

It's like you see in other sports where athlete commits an foul out of the ref's view, then the other retaliates and gets penalized, only because the second contact was more easily seen.

Or when Mary Decker knew she was going to lose and dove onto the infield. I you know your opponent has more left than you do, you can look for an opportunity like this to use as an excuse.

Mantz made a tactical error. A map of the finish indicates a tangent with 200meters to go.

google.com

TD Beach to Beacon 10K - Interactive Map - Google My Maps

TD Beach to Beacon 10K - Interactive Map

Link:www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1SBrR...

Not really what I see. There is minimal contact, but they are coming wider around the fence with Yihuse crowding Mantz toward it. Then he flagrantly tries to impede Mantz as Mantz is getting a step on him. Mantz also said on his Strava that the first time he was cut off was at 6 miles. We don’t have video so have to trust this actually happened initially.

It doesn’t matter now. What matters is next time Mantz knows to push his competitor hard. Just unavoidable, right?

I would add to your comment about racing in Europe. I ran a couple road races in Paris in which every single one of the other runners I saw cut the course on the turns, whether that meant going through a gas station instead of around it on the course or cutting to the inside trail from the outside trail in the Bois de Vincennes. As I ended up starting the latter late, it didn't cost me anything there but in the former their cheating demoted me from 1st in my division to third, costing a couple hundred dollars of their very generous awards. So, you learn how to play the game and you can't count on the others being virtuous.

There is nothing “flagrant” at any point in the video we have. Ffs.

Not sure how there is any debate that it was a DQ worthy offense. The Ethiopian practically pulled Mantz back behind him to prevent the pass, on top of squeezing him to the fence. My only criticism of Mantz is that he maybe overreacted a bit and instead of basically stopping and giving up the position he should’ve held position and given the guy a nice elbow to the ribs to clear space. Fight fire with fire.

This is my take too. It really doesn't look that bad when you watch it. If I'm an official I'd need to see something a little more blatant to take someone's paycheck away. Mantz still had a really solid result. Hopefully he'll be ready to roll in Chicago.

The Ethiopian was grimacing as he was shoving him into the fence. No need for facial expressions if it's light contact.

Yes, clearly the only reason someone would be grimacing at the end of a race is due to malicious, felonious assault.