Chaos has marred the T100 professional triathlon event in Dubai, with athletes confused over the number of laps they had completed on the bike and run legs.
New Zealand's Olympic silver medallist Hayden Wilde was the biggest casualty, the series leader missing the turn-off towards the second transition zone while leading the bike leg.
"He's missed the turn," Jack Kelly said in disbelief on commentary.
"Oh my God, he has missed transition. Jesus Christ Hayden, what are you doing?," added Jan Frodeno in co-coms.
"You're wrong buddy."
According to some social media posts, it appeared there were cones still covering the entrance to the transition when Wilde passed it.
Regardless of why he missed the turn though, Wilde, second-placed Frenchman Mathis Margirier and Belgian Marten Van Riel all had to complete an extra 8 kilometre lap, with no opportunity to either communicate their error or for the trio to turn back.
"Guys seriously, how can you do this?" the commentator said.
Previously fourth-place British athlete Sam Dickinson rolled into transition and looked desperately confused as to where the leaders had gone, before setting off on the 18km run leg.
"I don't think they'll know what's happened," the commentator said as the new leading trio looked around at the empty bike stands on course.
Wilde, meanwhile, was left even more confused when he arrived in transition to see that he was not in the lead as he had expected.
"What's going on?" he shouted at a spectator as he set out on the first of eight laps of the 18km run leg.
"You've done one extra lap on the bike," the spectator was heard shouting back.
"F***'s sake. That's bullshit," he said.
Later in the run, he came up to race leader Morgan Pearson and asked him, "What's going on?"
"Apparently you did an extra lap," Pearson said.
"We did not. We were at 76k," Wilde replied.
"Were you?" a stunned Pearson said.
"Yes," Wilde spat in disgust, racing on to try to limit the damage.
He completed the fastest run leg by far with 49:19 for the 18km, but finished eighth.
Incredibly, that wasn't the last of the confusion.
Run leg brings more chaos
Towards the end of the eight-lap run leg, while the cameras focused on race leader Pearson, who was seemingly all set to win his first T100 race, footage immediately cut to German Mika Noodt crossing the line and raising the winner's tape.
"No buddy, you have not won this race. Oh my god," the commentators said on the coverage as Noodt shrugged his shoulders, looked around and then could be seen asking "have I won?" on the footage.
"What is going on here?" said the co-commentator as Noodt shrugged his shoulders again and looked around before somewhat sheepishly celebrating.
"We're trying to work this out," the first commentator said, clearly baffled at what had taken place.
"Has Morgan Pearson now counted wrong as well?," the commentator postulated, trying to make sense of this latest turn of events.
"We're still trying to work out exactly what has happened here."
Sam Dickinson and Vincent Luis soon arrived behind Noodt, thinking they too had finished the race.
Confused, they then watched the arrival of Pearson, who was shocked to see that his winning moment had seemingly passed him by, hijacked by people he thought were behind him in the race.
Wilde eventually flew home after a blistering run but was absolutely furious and demanded that the cameras leave him alone.
More than an hour passed as several athletes protested the result, with Pearson eventually crowned as winner.
The issue was a faulty lap counter, with World Triathlon and the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) releasing a statement to that effect.
"Due to a technical issue with the lap counting board and timing, the official result for the Dubai T100 Men's race was determined after the 7th lap, which was the last known timing and follows World Triathlon guidelines," it read.
Although Pearson was justifiably crowned the winner, the organisers will be left red faced by the shambolic finish to the event.
Noodt was awarded second and Gregory Barnaby third. Luis was fifth, behind Jason West.
Needless to say, the athletes were not best pleased. Van Riel wrote that the “real winner” was rival long distance triathlon organiser, Ironman. “I will give a bigger update on the whole situation later, but I am honestly quite devastated right now,” the Belgian wrote on Facebook. “I not only lost 10s of thousands of dollars, but I mostly feel let down by an organisation I tried supporting and sacrificed a big part of my season for. “I think the professional can go and we can just call it the ‘triathlon organisation’ from today onwards.”
The T100 is a relatively new format, middle-distance race featuring a 2km swim, 80km bike and 18km run organised by the PTO, taking place around the world, with an event set for the Gold Coast in March 2026.
Olympic triathlon distances are 1.5km run, 40km bike and 10km run, while traditional half iron-distance races feature a 1.9km swim, 90km bike and 21km run.
