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AAs Spanish race walker Laura García-Caro approached the finish line of the 20km race at the European Athletics Championships on Friday, she began to celebrate the bronze medal she was about to win.
She pumped her fist and stuck out her tongue playfully, the Spanish flag fluttering behind her in her shirt.
However, in the final metres of the race, the smile on the athlete’s face turned to shock and horror as Ukraine’s Lyudmila Olyanovska crossed the finish line ahead of her, taking the bronze medal instead of García-Caro.
“I’m very disappointed. I was a little hurt in the first half of the race but I did recover and in the last 10 meters I thought I had won but it wasn’t the case,” Garcia-Caro, 29, told local media. Sky News“Now I have to accept (what happened) and heal my heart.”
Video of Oljanovska surpassing Garcia-Carlo Going viral on social media, Many viewers took this moment as a lesson in not celebrating too soon.
The competition was held at the Olympic Stadium in Rome. In the end, the host athlete Antonella Palmisano won the gold medal with a time of 1 hour 28 minutes and 08 seconds. Her Italian teammate Valentina Trapletti won the silver medal with a gap of 29 seconds, and Oljanovska won the bronze medal with a gap of 11 seconds.
After the match, Oljanovska thanked her country and her family.
“Of course, I was tired in the last kilometre and the last metres, but I wanted so badly to win this medal for my country,” she said. European Athleticsmentioned Russia’s war with Ukraine“We had very tough training conditions and the preparation was very hard, but I’m very happy to bring home a medal.”
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