WATCH: RIB narrowly misses competitors in Olympic triathlon

A large twin outboard RIB caused chaos on the start line of the Men’s triathlon event at Tokyo 2020 today.

As the start of the 1500 metre swim leg of the triathlon was sounded, a media boat blocked half the competitors before reversing out the way at great speed, narrowly missing those who had already dived in.

Embarrassing and dangerous, the incident lead to a false start being called and a mini flotilla of boats and jet skis having to stop and haul back the recalled swimmers.

A statement for world triathlon did little to explain how the mix up came about. “At the start some of the athletes were blocked by an OBS (Olympic Broadcast Services) boat and as a result we had to start again the race due to an invalid start.”

The race got eventually got underway ten minutes later, with Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt winning and Great Britain’s Alex Gee taking silver.