ASpanish walker Laura Garcia-Caro approached the finish line of the 20km race at the European Athletics Championships on Friday and began to celebrate the bronze medal she was in good shape to win.
She punched the air and stuck her tongue out shamelessly, with the Spanish flag tucked into her shirt waving behind her.
However, in the last meters of the race, the smile on the athlete’s face turned to shock and horror when Ukrainian Lyudmila Olyanovska crossed the finish line before her, winning the bronze medal instead of Garcia-Caro.
“I’m quite disappointed. I suffered in the first part of the race, but (I recovered) and in the last 10 meters I thought I had made it, but I didn’t make it,” Garcia-Caro, 29, told local media, according to Sky News. “Now I have to assimilate [what happened] and heal my heart.”
The video of Olyanovska overtaking Garcia-Caro went viral on social media, with many viewers citing the moment as a lesson not to celebrate too soon.
The race, which took place at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, ended with Antonella Palmisano winning gold for the host country with a time of 1:28:08, her Italian teammate Valentina Trapletti 29 seconds behind in silver and Olyanovska 11 seconds behind in bronze. .
After the race, Olyanovska thanked her country and her family.
“Of course I was tired in the last kilometer and in the last meters, but I really wanted to win this medal for my country”, she said, for European Athletics, mentioning Russia’s war with Ukraine. “We trained in very difficult conditions, it was a very difficult preparation, but I am very happy to have managed to take home a medal.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
