ATLANTA — The 2022 winner and favorite to repeat this year in the AJC Peachtree Road Race women's elite division, Senbere Teferi, was right on course for a victory Tuesday morning.
And then, suddenly, she wasn't on the course at all.
The Ethiopian runner, appearing to be following a police motorcycle that had been pacing the course, followed the motorcycle as it veered off in advance of the finish line.
The runners behind her, Fotyen Tesfay and Jesca Chelangat, continued on - with Ethiopian Tesfay recording the first major race win of her career.
Teferi was coming off a record-setting win just a month ago at the New York Mini 10K.
You can watch the clip in the video player above or in the YouTube player below.
In the clip (starting about 2:20) you can see Teferi seems to think the race course takes a right turn.
After going off course, she sprinted back out to try to catch up - but it was too late. She finished third with a time of 30:47, two seconds behind Jesca Chelangat for second and four seconds behind Tesfay for the win.
As you can see in the clip, Tesfay almost, herself, began to follow Teferi off course, but corrected to race ahead for the win.
The 25-year-old had previously been a runner up at 10K races in Herzogenaurach, Germany and Bangalore, India earlier this year. She also finished seventh in the 10,000-meter event in Ethiopia's national trials last month.
The AJC Peachtree Road Race addressed the incident on Twitter, writing:
"As our defending champion, Senbere Teferi, was approaching the finish line, it looks like she momentarily became confused and followed a police motorcycle when it turned off the course. She was within sight of the finish banner, but we understand that in the heat of competition instructions can be misinterpreted. As an organization, we are disappointed whenever we fall short of perfection, and in this case, it appears we did."