Jess Hull has blown a glorious opportunity to grab Diamond League glory when she completely ran out of steam with victory in the 1500m final in her grasp in Zurich.
Australia's Olympic silver medallist looked certain to prevail as she held a 10-metre lead coming down the home straight in the Letzigrund Stadium on Thursday but she'd miscalculated her energy reserves and blew up horribly in the last few steps, allowing Kenyan Nelly Chepchirchir to steal the win right on the line.
Chepchirchir herself was nearly out on her feet and the leading pair were both almost overhauled by the third-placed Australian, Linden Hall, whose fast finish would surely have taken her to the victory win in a couple more strides.
"I saw it, I saw Nelly coming closer, it's okay," sighed a resigned Hull afterwards.
"I'm just pretty tired right now and that's just the training load. If anything, I ran a very good 1300 or 1400 and the last hundred will come when I freshen up."
As she slumped to the track exhausted after being beaten by just three-hundredths of a second - 3min 57.02sec to Chepchirchir's season's best 3:56.99, the 28-year-old Hull may have reflected on how she'd also missed a chance for the Australian team.
Because if she had won, it would have resulted in an extra fourth place being opened up for Australia in the women's 1500m in Tokyo.
Georgia Griffith, who'd earlier finished fourth in the 3000m final in 8:41.36 behind Ethiopian winner Fantaye Belayneh (8:40.56), may have been the one who would have benefited.
All-time miling great Steve Cram said on the BBC he'd never seen anything like Hull's 'collapse' once her bold front-running had allowed her, after compatriot Catriona Bisset had done the hard pacemaking yards, to push on for glory with just under 800m left.
Five metres clear at the bell, Hull doubled her advantage - and more - down the back straight but had nothing left for the denouement.
Cram noted: "She completely misjudged it, the two of them couldn't have gone any slower at the end. I've never seen that before. Jess completely ran out of gas.
"You've got to know you've got enough in reserve when you get to 300, 200 to go. She's got that experience, but with 200 she was still heading for a time of 3:55. I haven't seen anything like that from Jess in a long time.
"In the end, Linden Hall (3:57.44) almost won it - it was a strange race."
It meant Hull missed out on joining Wednesday's high jump winner Nicola Olyslagers, high hurdler Sally Pearson and two-time pole vault winner Nina Kennedy as Australian women Diamond League champions.
Olympic bronze medallist Matthew Denny missed out his third straight men's discus title, his best effort of 66.62m good enough for only fourth behind Lithuania's world record holder Mykolas Alekna, who prevailed with 68.89m in the second round.
NSW's world bronze medallist Mackenzie Little also just missed out on the podium in fourth, with her 61.96m best in the javelin, as Greek Elina Tzengko won with 64.57m.
Melbourne's Sarah Billings came home seventh (1:58.76) in a thrilling 800m won by local Swiss heroine Audrey Werro in 1:55.91.
