IT started out as a tough morning for Kurt Fearnley, but as the sun set yesterday the Carcoar wheelchair racing athlete was not thinking about the pain he had put his body through to place fifth in the annual Boston Marathon.
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Instead, he was thinking about the families who had lost loved ones in a series of explosions that occurred around four hours into the annual event.
Fearnley had finished his 42.2 kilometre push in the wheelchair section of the marathon - having placed fifth behind Hiroyuki Yamamoto of Japan - and was eating lunch when two bombs exploded near the finish line, leaving three people dead and hundreds injured.
At that stage there were still runners out on the course and a huge number of spectators cheering them on.
“When you heard the second blast you kind of knew it was something a bit terrible,” Fearnley told Sunrise.
“We were sitting around having dinner, having lunch when we heard the second blow. We though ‘OK, this is serious’.
“The first one sounded like thunder or something and then when the second happened we all sort of took off to the window. We were on the first floor looking down onto the street just off the finish line then this mass of people just ran by and you thought, ‘This is the real deal’, and jumped onto social media and started to figure out what had happened.
“You know the pictures that came out immediately were pretty heavy content and I feel for the guys who were at the finish line.
“These guys were having a cracking day - the Boston Marathon, you don’t get a bigger running event, athletic event in the world, and it’s on Patriots Day. This will hurt, this will hurt the community for a long time.”
Authorities do not believe any of the 153 Australians who lined up for the event alongside 24,000 other runners were injured.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the safety of Australians who could have been caught up in the destruction was of "paramount concern".
“At this stage we are not aware of any Australian victims, so we do not have any evidence of course at the moment that any Australians have been hurt in this incident,” Ms Gillard told reporters in Canberra.
Late yesterday afternoon (AEST) the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told AAP this information had not changed.
A department travel warning for Australians travelling to the US was updated, but not upgraded, in the hours after the blasts.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr said fears the incident was a terrorist attack were legitimate.
Sydney woman Louise Kring was the last Australian to finish the race before the bombs went off, crossing the line five minutes prior to the blasts, but was not affected and safely made it to her hotel.
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