Major Disaster Avoided After Media Boat Gets in Way of Athletes for Men?s Triathlon at Tokyo Olympics 2020

The Tokyo Olympics 2020 saw Kristian Blummenfelt win the Men’s triathlon event. The Norwegian athlete won the race by posting a time of 1:45.04. Jack Yee from Great Britain took home the silver medal while Hayden Wilde of New Zealand claimed the bronze.

Unfortunately, all the headlines made would be about the start of the race. Although no injuries were reported, a major disaster was avoided in the men’s triathlon.

World Triathlon chose not to bring up the details of the incident that happened.

Major disaster avoided at Tokyo Olympics 2020

As the athletes were ready for the start on top of the platoon, an OBS (Olympic Broadcast Services) boat came close to the athletes while they entered the water. As several of the 56 competitors dived into the water for the start, the boat impeded them. Moreover, the boat reversed, risking the other athletes at the back. Significantly, the other competitors started swimming as they did not see what unfolded at the back.

Most of them got stuck on the platoon as well.

Despite the alarm being sounded, most of the swimmers went ahead and several jet skis had to intervene to stop the event. An ‘invalid start’ was declared as the race resumed after 10 minutes. It was quite a strange thing to happen.

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Medal winners react to the ruckus

The Norwegian gold medalist spoke about the start, which led to a lot of confusion for all the athletes. Kristian Blummenfelt said,?“I saw the boat and found it quite strange, When I dived in I thought it would most likely be pulled back so I just kept to the left and went steady and tried to look at it as a positive, an extra warm up.”

The bronze medalist from the event, Hayden Wilde, reacted hilariously on how he thought he had a fantastic start.

“I thought ‘I’ve had a blinder of a start here’ then realised that it was because hardly anyone else was around me and I felt pretty gutted, But then I tried to make a positive out of it – it was actually good to stretch the arms a bit after hanging around for a bit for 25 minutes before the start,” said Wilde.

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A lot of problems have arisen in the recent Tokyo Games because of protests and the ongoing pandemic. However, the event went on and Blummenfelt won the gold medal.

The Olympics till now has been a smashing event with memorable moments racking up every day. However, the latest boat incident turned out to be taken on a lighter note but, nonetheless, it was quite a dangerous experience for the athletes.