FORMER Ballarat Olympian and marathon runner Lee Troop has told a Geelong radio station he didn’t believe a bomb had exploded when the first loud blast rocked the Boston Marathon yesterday.
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Troop said he was sitting 200 metres from the finish line in a nearby hotel when the first explosion occurred.
“I was sitting with a runner and he said ‘that’s a bomb’,” Troop told Geelong radio station Bay FM, shortly after the explosions.
“I said ‘no, it sounds like it’s scaffolding that hit the ground’.”
Troop said there was confusion in the streets as authorities, runners and spectators grappled with the enormity of what had occurred.
“People were just running across the streets. There was just pandemonium,” he said.
“All of a sudden (there were) police and ambulances and from that point everything has just gone down hill.”
Troop said he did not know what had intially happened, but was hearing “mixed reports” throughout the hours following the blasts.
He said he was able to account for all athletes he was coaching, as well as any Australians he knew to be in Boston.
“People who have lost their lives and they’ve lost limbs... it’s just horrific and its just a very sad day,” he said.
“We’re just on alert that anything can happen and our hotel is in lock down,” he said.
“The airport’s closed, the subway’s closed.
“We really don’t know what’s going on.”
Troop finished 15th in this year’s marathon, in a time of two hours and 17 minutes.
In the 1990s, Troop represented the Ballarat Harriers and was coached by Steve Moneghetti.
Troop has competed in the Boston Marathon many times, finishing 13th in 2009.
jordan.oliver@fairfaxmedia.com.au
