BIRMINGHAM (Reuters) – Bralon Taplin, the world’s fastest man over 400 metres this year, was disqualified along with all the other runners in his heat at the world indoor championships on Friday.
All four finishers in heat three were ruled to have run out of their lane after another favourite, Qatar’s Abdalelah Haroun, was red carded for false starting.
Grenadian Taplin, running in the outside lane and the hot favourite for the event, had thought he had comfortably qualified in 46.37 seconds for the semi-finals later in the day.
Jamaica’s Steven Gayle, Latvia’s Austris Karpinskis and Alonzo Russell from the Bahamas were also disqualified.
All decisions were subject to appeal.
(Reporting by Neil Robinson, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
