Track and field fans may have expected Arkansas to dominate the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Outdoor Championships once again— and they did just that, clinching their 24th SEC outdoor men’s title and an impressive fifth straight crown with 98.5 points at the Shively Track & Field Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky, on Saturday (May 17). But while the Razorbacks soared, the men’s 5,000m final delivered the kind of drama no one could have predicted.

Just seconds into the race, a massive multi-athlete pileup disrupted the flow of the packed field, leaving fans and commentators stunned. Toby Gillen of Ole Miss ultimately emerged victorious with a time of 13:49.75, but much of the conversation after the race centered around the early-race carnage — a jarring reminder of what happens when too many runners are packed too tightly on the track.

The moment was captured live as stunned commentators narrated the chaos: “Right there, you started to—somebody went down, and several others went down. Oh, look at this. This is a major collision. The first domino to fall right there, so it’s about the eighth or ninth place runner at the time, and look at how many are involved! Max Harden from Auburn has to bounce inside the track to avoid it. There’s two Ole Miss athletes. You can see that Shearer goes down and rolls. That’s a complete back somersault. And a couple of Ole Miss guys go down, try to get up, and go down again.”

The footage — later shared on X (formerly Twitter) by NBC Sports Director of Social Media Travis Miller — quickly went viral, sparking heated debates within the running community. Fans were quick to point out the avoidable nature of the crash, with one particularly pointed comment going viral: “This unacceptable! You guys break up the groups for indoor season for this SAME reason !!! All those runners in one race for what ??!!???!!?!!!” The frustration is understandable. With such a large field on the track and so much at stake, one small stumble can trigger a domino effect — and on Saturday, it did.

Injuries, shaken confidence, and dashed championship hopes were all potential outcomes for those caught in the fall. While some athletes scrambled to their feet and continued, others saw their SEC dreams unravel on the blue track in Lexington. But how did such things happen? Charles Fogelman had something to add. 

The track and field follower shared relevant pieces of information regarding it. He wrote, “It appears that 51 people started this race. This is maybe a side effect of new mega conferences: the SEC has 16 schools; the Big Ten (18 schools) had 44 men start their championship 5000.” So, that explains the difference. The Big Ten Conference includes fewer contestants in the contest despite having more entries to avoid overcrowding. And that’s how such falls have been avoided on the track. However, the track and field fans didn’t stop to show concerns over the incident. 

The track and field fans show their concerns over the incident 

As the dust settles from the carnage-filled men’s 5,000m final at the SEC Outdoor Championships, outrage continues to ripple through the track and field world — and not without reason. Following Saturday’s pileup that sent multiple runners crashing to the track in the opening seconds, the comment sections lit up like a starting gun. One particularly cutting remark came from Tim Vendevelde, a sports journalism alumnus, who didn’t mince words: “Racing a final with that many runners should be a crime, this could have ended a lot worse with all these spikes hitting the ground.”

The concern is far from hypothetical. Just two months ago, the 2025 European Indoor Championships provided a chilling precedent. On the fifth lap of the women’s 3,000m final, Dutch standout Maureen Koster was leading a tight pack when her feet tangled with those of a trailing runner. She fell violently— her head smacking the track — and reportedly lost consciousness on impact.

Trackside medics rushed in and removed her from the course seconds before the field came storming around again. Thankfully, Koster later recovered, but the memory lingers — a stark warning of how bad these incidents can become. Commentators and fans didn’t hold back this time either.

Veteran track raconteur Alex Predhome reposted the SEC 5,000m crash clip with a dry jab: “This is what running on the Charles River is like on the first nice day of spring.”  Even walking on the frozen Charles River is scary in spring. So, you can get Alex’s words’ meaning.  Meanwhile, another fan compared the field to a cycling race gone wrong: “That’s not a track final… that’s a peloton.” And someone else chimed in with the kind of honest vulnerability many distance runners secretly relate to: “i could never run long distance.”

But underneath the jokes and jabs is a real issue: race safety. Why are finals — especially in championship settings — still being run with oversized fields that cram dozens of athletes into tight corners, knowing full well that disaster is only a misstep away? Well, the athletes deserve better. So do the fans. And the time to start the conversation isn’t later — it’s now. Because of the next fall? It might not end with everyone getting back up.