The Kenyan runner who led for most of the Los Angeles Marathon only to get beaten in the final tenth of a second, was apparently undone by an unruly fan and an errant direction from a person working the race.
Michael Kimani Kamau, a Kenyan runner who was dressed in a pink and orange shirt, swerved to his right to avoid a fan who bolted out in front of him waving a flag. That move took him out of the appropriate lane for the finishing the race. Compounding the error, a man wearing a vest and appearing to work for the race, began pointing in the wrong direction.
All of these things cost Kamau what turned out to be very precious seconds as American Nathan Martin closed the distance.
“That’s the wrong track — ah, she messed him up,” one fan can be heard saying in the video.
Martin’s victory made it two years in a row where an American crossed the finish line first. Matthew Richtman broke America’s 31-year winless streak last year.
More than 27,000 runners took to the streets of LA for the race on Sunday.
