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It was incredibly fortunate that no-one was injured by the twin outboard motors on the vessel as it hastily maneuvered away.<\/p>\n
In the confusion of the moment support boats and jet skis flew off as some were left stranded on the pontoon, despite the false start alert horn sounding to halt the opening 1,500 metre swim leg.<\/p>\n
MORE:<\/strong> Full Tokyo Olympics medal tally, schedule and results<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n It took two jet skis to round up the leaders who didn't realise the race had stopped, before they were finally able to reset the 56 triathletes and start again 10 minutes later.<\/p>\n '"I've never seen that – definitely not in the Olympics," former Great Britain triathlete Non Stanford told BBC.<\/p>\n "Hopefully the guys who did jump in, it didn't affect their race too much."<\/p>\n "I have never seen anything like that before at the start of a triathlon, let alone one at the Olympics. What a shambles," BBC commentator Matt Chilton said.<\/p>\n When the race did finally get underway, Blummenfelt burst clear near the end of the run leg, producing a gut-busting effort to beat home Great Britain's Alex Yee and New Zealand's Hayden Wilde.<\/p>\n It soon became clear just how much Blummenfelt had pushed himself to get to the finish first when he vomited after collapsing at the line.<\/p>\n Australia's Jacob Birtwhistle finished 16th, with countrymen Matthew Hauser 24th and Aaron Royle 26th.<\/p>\n For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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