A medal ceremony is the most sombre affair held after a hard-won race at a major sporting event.

With the national anthems playing, the top three athletes stand at the podium as their respective country flags slowly get raised during the ceremony.

But it was that last step that proved to be a stumbling block during the Asian Games that is held in Indonesia in August 2018.

Swimming event

The event was the 200m freestyle, where swim star Sun Yang of China had grabbed first place, Katsuhiro Matsumoto of Japan securing second place, and Ji XinXie of China rounding off the top three.

Here's the ceremony

Things were going quite smoothly at first, with the medalists taking their place on the podium with minimal fuss.

The Chinese national anthem started playing promptly, and the flags were hoisted up.

And just as the anthem reached its apex, this happened.

You can see that ever slight wobble, followed by a bit of stabilisation, and then the fall.

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Ever the professionals, the soldiers stayed in salute.

While a man with a Chinese accent incredulously sputters: "They were serious?".

This incident happened during the second day of the games.

Image from video