Impressive images, with athletes jostling and sometimes stepping on each other. This is reminiscent of the scenes seen at the beginning of 2023, in Valencia, when Juliette Thomas, who has just completed her first marathon in 2h31.40had been taken in a collective fall at the start of a 10 km there too.
Several elements can explain these falls seen repeatedly. Firstly, the craze for road racing, where many elites want to come and get times in targeted races, always brings more tension during the first few hundred meters of the races, where everyone tries to find their place. But also the management of starting flows, with issues not always taken into account by organizers or athletes not always positioned according to their real level at the time of setting off.
The French 10 km road championships were won by Méline Rollin, for women, and Raphaël Montoya, for men.
