There is a camaraderie in all sports that transcends the myriad off-field differences of the competitors. I find this to be particularly true in the sport of distance running, as the act itself, especially in the full blood of racing, is humbling. 

There are not many loudmouths in running, because the act itself punishes you, not just your opponents. Good sportsmanship is both expected and applauded. So when an incident crops up that gets close to crossing the line, it stands out. 

We saw just such an incident last weekend at the 25th anniversary of the TD Beach To Beacon 10k Road Race in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, figuratively and literally. 

In the final stretch of the race in Fort Williams Park, race leader, Yihune Addisu of Ethiopia, found himself being pressed for the win by America’s Conner Mantz as the final 2/10ths of a mile wove through Fort Williams Park toward the iconic finish beneath the historic Portland Head Light, the oldest commissioned lighthouse in the country.

Mantz, who led the first mile and a half, had moved up dramatically in the final mile from the back of the five-man lead pack to challenge Addisu for first-place honors. The other three men had since given up the ghost.

As Mantz roared up alongside Addisu in full flight, knees high, arms pumping, riding high on his stride, Addisu instinctively stuck out an elbow while veering slightly left, pinching Conner off along a string of red crowd barriers.

To avoid crashing into the fencing, Mantz broke stride, though he wore a fresh abrasion on his left biceps after the race to show where contact had been made. 

That broken stride was enough to cost Mantz whatever chance he had of winning, as before he could reengage his top gear, the race was over. The young Ethiopian won by two seconds, 27:56 to 27:58.

As I reported in my post-race story, BYU grad Mantz instantly brought up the subject of interference as he walked past the photographers’ pit on the grassy field, past the finish line. 

Rather than continuing to snap pictures, I turned on my video app and captured Conner in his moment of frustration. 

Later, Portland Press Herald reporter Steve Craig and I approached Yihune Addisu and third-place finisher Muktar Edris as they changed out of their racing togs behind the elite athletes’ tent. Here’s that exchange. 

People say race officials should have disqualified Addisu for interference. But while race officials are expected to act proactively if they personally witness a possible infraction, there were no officials or official race video at the site of the alleged incident.

Therefore, it would have been left to the aggrieved athlete, or his representative, to file an official protest. 

I spoke with TD B2B’s legacy race director Dave McGillivray today. He said right after Friday’s press conference, as he always does, he took all the elite athletes off to the side and explained, among other things, the protocol for filing a protest: how, where, when, who, etcetera.

At the race on Saturday morning, Rich Hickey of the Massachusetts Track & Field Officials Association, was on hand as the race referee, a position he has held at B2B for several years. Typically, he’s on the press truck and then hangs around close to the elite athlete’s tent in case there is a protest that needs to be filed.

“At the awards stage around 10 o’clock, Conner came up to me and explained what happened,” said Dave, “I said, ‘I’ll take you over to the race referee, and if you want to file a protest, fine.’

“Connor said, I’don’t want to file a protest. I don’t want to win this race by having someone disqualified, so I don’t want him disqualified.’ OK, that’s your prerogative.

“So, he chose not to file a protest, and I thought that was the end of the story. And even if he did file a protest, I said, ‘I don’t think we have enough visual evidence, and it would just be your word against his.’  

“Anyway, time goes on, and all of a sudden, this TikTok video appears hours later. And I started saying, forget about the one-hour time limit for filing a protest, if there is strong enough evidence showing an aggressive violation, and we have the video evidence, are we allowed to act upon that if it comes in three hours later, or one day later?

“First of all, an official did not take the video, so there has to be an authenticity question taken into consideration. Is that evidence acceptable? So I called Rich Hickey the next day and asked, ‘you tell me if it this video is incriminating or not.’ He said he wasn’t sure about it himself.”

Then Dave brought up that there is precedence for a late ruling. Remember the most infamous of all running controversies, the Rosie Ruiz scandal at the 1980 Boston Marathon? 

“She crossed the finish line on Patriots’ Day on Monday,” recalled McGillivray. “But she wasn’t disqualified for another week after the BAA looked over all the evidence and found out that she had only run maybe the last half mile rather than the full 26.2.  

“Bottom line is, Conner had every right to file a protest. We made it clear to the athletes we had a referee and a jury of appeals in place. He proactively told me he did not want to file a protest. In the end, after communicating with his agent, Ray Flynn, Conner said, ‘I just want to come back and beat him next year.’“

This is me again. I don’t believe Conner was prepared for the incident, in the first place, while Addisu, who led the entire second half of the race, showed he wasn’t about to give up this victory without a fight.

Did the TikTok video show conclusive evidence of a foul? Mantz missed out on the $5000 difference between first and second place. He also missed a shoe company bonus tied to the victory, and the prestige of winning one of the top non-marathon races in the country. 

At the same time, racing at the end of one’s tether is a very compartmented world. It isn’t like walking around. Instinct takes over. You do things during eyeballs-out racing you wouldn’t ordinarily do if given the chance to think things through. But that’s why there are race referees on hand to adjudicate such incidents.

Conner tried to pass on the inside around a slight bend to the left, and Addisu shut that door when Conner had maybe a single foot through. But was it enough? It’s almost like Dale Earnhardt from his NASCAR days. “If you ain’t rubbin’, you ain’t racin’.” We have seen it hundreds of times on the track and cross country. Usually, road racing has plenty of room to maneuver, but not always.

It was an unfortunate incident that painted Mr. Addisu as a win-at-all costs competitor, while showcasing Mr. Mantz, who seemed genuinely conflicted about how to proceed, as less cutthroat. You could tell he didn’t want to cast a negative light on the silver anniversary of the iconic race.

Hopefully, Conner Mantz will use this incident to motivate him for future competitions, and perhaps remind him to protect himself at all times, like they tell boxers to do before the bell rings for round one. This ain’t country club tennis we’re playing here.

END