British star grabs race official by the throat
COMMONWEALTH medallist Kyle Langford could face a sanction from UK Athletics after being involved in an astonishing altercation with a track official on Saturday night.
The 800metres star, who took silver in Australia last year, became embroiled in what appeared to be a physical confrontation with a track referee after being given a red card prior to his race at a British Milers’ Club (BMC) meeting in Watford.
The official objected to the fact that Langford completed a 200m warm-up sprint while a 5,000m race was taking place.
Last night, Langford’s manager Gary Lough said his athlete was running in lane two but the official considered it too close to competing runners and disqualified him from his own event.
A row then erupted and a video posted on social media last night appears to show Langford grab the official around the throat and push him before walking away.
Insiders claim the official may have put his hands on Langford prior to that, although there is some confusion as to whether the referee — believed to be John Howe — was trying to usher the 23-year-old, who finished fourth at the 2017 World Championships in London, away from the track.
UK Athletics are looking into the incident at a meeting that was attended by Neil Black, their performance director.
Lough told Sportsmail: ‘It was an unfortunate situation but Kyle has been apologetic. He understands he shouldn’t act like that with any official, but it’s important to know the full facts of what happened. Kyle apologised and was allowed to run on the night, apologising again afterwards.’
Langford posted a tweet last night, more than 24 hours after the incident but within an hour of
Sportsmail contacting Lough and UKA. He said: ‘ Yesterday I let myself and my support team down by reacting angrily to an official at the BMC event.
‘I allowed pre-race tension to get to me too much and my behaviour fell well short of what it should be. I have apologised to the official involved and have also followed up in writing, but I know this wasn’t acceptable and I apologise that I behaved in that way.’