RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- It was a tumultuous day at the Rio Olympic Games for the 41-year-old Washington State University Athletic Hall of Fame member Bernard Lagat.
 
Lagat finished the race in sixth place in a season-best time of 13 minutes 6.78 seconds. Immediately after the race, Paul Chelimo, from Team USA, who crossed the finish line second in a time of 13:03.90, Hagos Gebrhiwet, from Ethiopia, who cross the line third in a time of 13:04.35, and Muktar Edris from Ethiopia, were DQ'd under IAAF Rule 163.3b for lane infringement. After protests were files, and an extended amount of controversy, the ruling of Chelimo and Gebrhiwet's DQs were reversed but Edris' DQ was held and Lagat moved up to fifth place but dropped from the medal stand.
 
Great Britain's Mo Farah won the gold in a time of 13:03.30 while Mohammed Ahmed, from Canada, placed fourth (13:05.94). The third US entrant in the men's 5k final, Hassan Mead, finished ninth in a time of 13:09.81.
 
After the race and Lagat had been elevated to the bronze medal due to the disqualifications, the consummate sportsman and gentleman was quoted on FloTrack.com as saying, "To disqualify people when they didn't gain an advantage is not the right spirit. I like to know I earned my medal."
 
Had he won a medal Saturday night, Lagat would have become the oldest man to medal in the Olympic 5k history.
 
Rio was Lagat's third consecutive Olympic Games as a member of Team USA, and his fifth consecutive games appearance. Lagat won a bronze medal in the 1,500m at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, won the silver medal in the 1,500m at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and finished fourth in the 5000m at the 2012 Beijing Games. Lagat, a 2016 Pac-12 T&F Team of the Century member, won the his eighth consecutive national championship in the event at the 2016 US Olympic Trials in July in Eugene, when he came from sixth place going into the final lap to win in a time of 13:35.50 seconds.
 
Earlier in the Track & Field portion of the Rio Olympic Games, WSU assistant coach, Angela Whyte, competing for her native Canada, tied for 30th in the women's 100m hurdles preliminary heats with a time of 13.09 seconds. Whyte, 36, had finished third in the women's100m hurdles at the Canadian Olympic Trials in Edmonton, Alberta, in July. Her Trials time was 13.06 seconds but earlier this year she ran a time of 12.95. The Rio Games were Whyte's third Olympic Games after a sixth-place 100m hurdles finish at the 2004 Athens Games and competing at the 2008 Beijing Games. She is one of just two women in the world to qualify for the IAAF World Championships in the 100m hurdles every year since 2001. Last winter, Whyte finished fifth place in the 60m hurdles at the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland.