I believe it was a deliberate choice to make things more visible to the crowd, because they'd all get three chances to see the athletes going past.
I think it worked, it certainly gave the cameras a chance to show off the city!
That was a hell of an impressive finish by Stephen Kiprotich. He was behind Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich and Abel Kirui for so long, and even the commentators were making mutterings about whether he could hang on to Bronze, or whether Marilson Dos Santos would take that off him, but then, bang, and the Ugandan just went off like a rocket.
He was looking behind a lot in those last few kilometres, checking that he had the lead, but for the last few hundred metres, he obviously knew he had it, and was grinning like a mad thing.