Olympic sprinter Jeremiah Azu was disqualified from the 100m heats in Paris before his race had even begun.
The 23-year-old from Team Great Britain had left the starting block just 0.073 of a second before the gun had fired, resulting in a false start which saw him disqualified from the race and competing in the 100m in another qualifier.
It was a bitterly disappointing moment for Azu, who will have trained for multiple years to impress in Paris, having ran an impressive 9.97 earlier this summer in preparation for the games.
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After being disqualified, Azu looked to be perplexed with the decision to not allow him to run again. Azu appealed the decision in hopes to run in a qualifier, but the appeal was rejected. He told reporters: "Honestly, I reacted to a sound. It's a shame, the crowd is so excited. The pole vault is going on and the French fans are in here. It's a shame they didn't let me run under protest, I'm not sure what rule is being used.
"But they said I've got to go back and put an appeal in, so I'm going to go through the process and see what happens. I was saying I wanted to run under protest. Any other race they allow you to run and then after you review it, but I don't know, it's the Olympics so it's clearly different rules. So I'm just going to get back, try and get this protest done as quick as possible so hopefully I can get back out here and get into the semi-final."
Azu has had to battle adversity throughout the 2024 season, being forced to withdraw from both the World Indoor Athletics Championships in March and the European Athletics Championships in May after struggling with injuries - in the hopes of truly making a name for himself in Paris.
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Although the 23-year-old will not be permitted to compete in the individual 100m sprint, he will still be given another chance on the big stag - set to run in Team GB's 100m x 4 relay sprints next week.
Former American sprinter Michael Johnson stated that while he felt for Azu, he insinuated that he must take responsibility for starting the race early.
Johnson told the BBC: "You are at the Olympic Games, you know that you can't start before the gun and that was a blatant false start. The pressure is not the issue because this is the Olympic Games, you are a professional athlete, this what you do. The issue is whether or not he did hear something, because if he did that is a legitimate excuse. Nobody else heard it though, that's his problem [with the appeal], he was the only one."
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