British middle-distance runner is involved in a home straight pile up in Paris but is reinstated due to video referees leniency

George Mills will run in the Olympic 5000m final on Friday despite falling in the home straight of his heat and getting into a trackside spat with Frenchman Hugo Hay.

Mills and Hay clashed with 90m to go and as Mills was thrown out into lane two he brought down other athletes, although the Briton was soon reinstated into the final along with Dominic Lobalu, Mike Foppen and Thierry Ndikumwenayo, who had also been caught up in the melee.

To add to the chaos, Mo Ahmed, the Canadian who was fourth in the 10,000m final at these Games, tripped with a lap to go and wound up 16^th.

As tempers rose, Mills and Hay exchanged angry words when Mills accused the French athlete of stepping out in front of him.

Hay stayed on his feet to qualify in seventh in a race won by Narve Gilje Nordas of Norway in a slow 14:08.16. There was a big collision, said Hay, its not me, somebody pushed me, something happened, I turned around and everyone was on the floor so I hope its not me. I feel really good.

Mills didnt even have to file an official protest as the video referee qualified the athletes due to level they were disadvantaged and still finished.

It raises the question of why a large field of 19 men were allowed to run each of the two heats instead of holding three races with fewer athletes in each heat.

Mills said: It looks like my path was maybe stopped. Mo Ahmed went down with 800m to go and I just about managed to hurdle him, so I thought Id got away with one there, but then going into the home straight on the last lap, I was tucked in on the inside, where I wanted to be, because I knew some sort of gap would open up. It did and I was ready to put my foot down and all of a sudden, boom, I hit the deck.

Mills, who had been knocked out of the 1500m semi-finals earlier in the Games, added: I was ready to go. If we look at the top pace of the race, it was playing into a 1500m guys hands, so that was my plan. Get around the whole race, sit in and dont waste any energy, get into the last 100m, doesnt matter if you are 10^th or 12^th, you will be able to come past.

We executed that to the point, and I was ready to execute that last little bit, but that got taken out of my control unfortunately.

Mills team-mate Patrick Dever finished 13^th in the same race. I did everything I could, he said. I was struggling for speed at the end. It was tough, you dont want to lose at the Olympics. But Im proud that I put everything into it.

The morning after finishing fourth in the Olympic 1500m final, Jakob Ingebrigtsen won the second 5000m heat in 13:51.59. There was disappointment for Britains Sam Atkin, though, as he finished 18^th in 14:02.46.

After food poisoning wiped him out on the eve of the UK Championships earlier this summer, Atkin caught Covid for the first time in his life three weeks ago.

It has been a struggle the last five weeks, he said. The extreme food poisoning took it out on me and I felt like there was enough for me to get back. Although I could hardly walk up the stairs, it takes it out of you. But eventually I started coming back after being out for two weeks.

Atkin had struggled to run high intensity sessions in recent weeks but was hoping his body would have improved in time for the 5000m heats in Paris.

Ben Pattison, Elliot Giles and Max Burgin had more success in the mens 800m heats as they negotiated the round to progress to the semi-finals.

Giles, a late addition to the team to replace the injured Jake Wightman, was runner-up in his heat in 1:45.93 to world No.1 Djamel Sedjati of Morocco. Pattison made his trademark late surge to come from behind to win his heat in 1:45.56. Burgin also had to work hard in the later stages but said he felt good when finishing third in 1:45.36 behind winner Mohamed Attaoui of Morocco and Bryce Hoppel of the United States.

Giles said: Five days ago I was still in a camp in the Swiss Mountains, and now six days later Im at the Olympics competing on the biggest after having five weeks of thinking Im not going. Its just wild.

I stayed ready, even when I thought there was no chance of me going. I just said to myself Im an athlete first. Im not going to out and party with my friends and drinks. And the things that are easy to do when you miss out on selection. I just kept it professional.

Burgin added: The start list was a quite intimidating, seeing 1:45 next to my name and a bunch of 1:44s and a 1:42 next to the others, but I knew I was fitter than my form so far this season is showing.

Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya was fastest of all with 1:44.64.

There was good news for Revee Walcott-Nolan as the Brit qualified nicely for the 1500m semi-finals after running 4:06.73 for second place in a slow repechage heat.

Elsewhere, Cindy Sember qualified for the womens 100m hurdles semi-finals by finishing runner-up in her heat in 12.72 behind Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico, who ran 12.42 the quickest of the round.

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