Few dreams come as heavily caveated as this. Italian Eyob Faniel won the Venice marathon at the weekend, but he was helped slightly by the fact that six runners ahead of him were inexplicably led the wrong way.
25km into the race, the six race leaders - including Abdulahl Dawud, Gilbert Kipleting Chumba, Kipkemei Mutai and David Kiprono Metto - were led astray as the motorbike ahead of them took an errant turn onto a motorway. They followed for hundreds of metres, only realising the error as other motorbikes raced to catch them to wave them around.
By the time they were back on the right track, they had lost fully two minutes, allowing Faniel to make up time, and become the first Italian to win the race since 1995.
Here's a short video from Euronews showing how the leaders were led astray:
