The winner of the Moscow Marathon's 10-kilometer race was stopped out of the blue by a police officer only 500 meters from the finish line Sunday.
Rinas Akhmadeyev, a 26-year-old athlete from the Russian city of Kazan, was leading in the race when a police officer stopped him and said he was forbidden to go further.
“A policeman stopped me for 20 seconds. I was puzzled,” Akhmadeyev said in an interview with the Moscow 24 television channel. “They were like, 'You can't go any farther.' I asked them where the finish line was, but they repeated: 'You can't go any farther,'” he said.
Twenty seconds later the officer let the athlete complete the race, which he won despite the odd encounter, finishing in 29 minutes and 45 seconds. Police representatives told the Govorit Moskva radio station that they were not aware of the incident.
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