U.S. Runner Finds Out Live on Television That He Was Disqualified… After Winning Silver (UPDATED)

J.D. DurkinAug 20th, 2016, 9:45 pm
 

This was probably not the most ideal way for Paul Chelimo to find out he had been disqualified.

After finishing second in the Men’s 5000m final Saturday night, Chelimo was chatting live on air with an NBC Olympics correspondent, who informed him that he had been disqualified for stepping inside of the runner’s rail:

The 25-year-old athlete looks stunned to be hearing the news, as cameras cued up the alleged infraction:

Saturday Night Live‘s Leslie Jones took to Twitter to refer to the NBC correspondent as “reporter of doom,” wondering why one of the Olympics officials hadn’t been the one to tell the athlete of his heartbreaking fate.

In the most terribly awkward moment that I can recall in quite some time of Olympics broadcasting, the anchor then proceeds to play the clip of the race stumble and quite literally coaches Chelimo through where he went wrong.

“I was trying to go to the outside, in a position because they were blocking me in,” Chelmio said still trying to catch his breath. “They kept pushing me to the rail.”

UPDATE — 9:55 p.m. EST: Hold the presses! Dewey does NOT defeat Truman after all, and Paul Chelimo is again a silver medalist.

After an appeal, it appears as if Chelimo’s silver medal has now been reinstated:

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