Pesky pelican gets in the way of swimmers during race

We’ve had cats, dogs and even pigs at sporting events, but a pesky pelican is the new face of sport-invading animals after it repeatedly landed in a pool during a race in the US.

Competitors at a meet in Florida were in the breaststroke leg of the 200m individual medley when the bird landed in one of the lanes.

Footage shows that the pelican was completely unperturbed by both an official trying to scare it off and the oncoming swimmer.

As the competitor veered to avoid the avian interloper, it flies across to another lane while the amused crowd can be heard shouting at it.

Finally, a swimmer doing freestyle gets close enough to scare it out of the pool without any major disruption to the races.

Despite getting so close to the local wildlife, swimmers were oblivious to their brush with nature according to timekeeper, Elena Cano.

"'Bird? What bird?' he (a swimmer) said," Cano told the Tampa Bay Times.

"I thought 'I hope the bird didn't poop in the water.'"