This past Saturday, the 25th annual Beach To Beacon 10K in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, ended in spectacular fashion when second-place finisher Conner Mantz called out Ethiopia’s Addisu Yihune at the finish line after he was pushed by Yihune and cut off with only about 650 feet to go. The second-place finish cost Mantz an additional $5,000 in winnings.
Mantz, who placed 11th at the Boston Marathon earlier this year, attempted unsuccessfully to argue his case at the finish. He later called out Yihune on his Strava account of the race for what Mantz considered unsportsmanlike behavior. “With less than 200m to go, I made a big surge to pass him again,” Mantz said in the post. “There was a lot of room on the left, but he saw me passing him and ran me into the fence. My momentum was gone. I will look forward to my next chance to race Addisu Yihune.”
Video of Mantz and Yihune’s contact was shared across Instagram and TikTok, leading many to ask why Yihune was not disqualified—with some commenters noting that Yihune would have likely been in a track race. Indeed, both the USATF and the NCAA have rules against impeding a fellow competitor during a race, though, in marathons and other road races, most disqualifications happen for different reasons.
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Last year, during the Troy Turkey Trot 10K, a runner was disqualified for boxing out another competitor causing both athletes to tumble to the ground and across the finish line. Race officials ruled that Xavier Salvador violated the USATF rule preventing running across or obstructing another competitor, disqualified him, giving fourth place to Jack Huber.
Yihune received $10,000 for the win, with Mantz securing $5,000 for second place. Ethiopia’s Muktar Edris, a two-time world 5,000-mter champion, placed third with a time of 28:06.
Meanwhile, in the women’s race, reigning Boston Marathon champion Hellen Obiri and Ethiopia’s Fotyen Tesfay engaged in a different kind of battle during the race’s final kilometer. In the end, Obiri clinched her first Beach To Beacon 10K win in 31:37, just one second ahead of Tesfay—and without any contact.
Laura Ratliff is a New York City-based writer, editor, and runner. Laura's writing expertise spans numerous topics, ranging from travel and food and drink to reported pieces covering political and human rights issues. She has previously worked at Architectural Digest, Bloomberg News, and Condé Nast Traveler and was most recently the senior editorial director at TripSavvy. Like many of us, Laura was bitten by the running bug later in life, after years of claiming to "hate running." Her favorite marathon is Big Sur.
