Thousands Accused of Cheating at CDMX Marathon Andrew Dawson - Runner’s World
go to original September 17, 2017

Over 5,000 runners were disqualified amid accusations of widespread course-cutting (Alfredo Estrella)

Update: 'I Can Do Whatever I Want': Behind the Chaos at the Mexico City Marathon (Runner’s World)

Every race has its problems. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes a course error causes runners to go the wrong way, or a train causes delays. More and more often, races have to deal with runners attempting to cheat. But the Mexico City Marathon, held August 27, had problems on an entirely different level.

More than 5,800 people were disqualified from the marathon after an investigation revealed that over 20 percent of participants failed to complete the course. Of those disqualified, 1,296 posted times that would have qualified them for the Boston Marathon.

According to the official results released last week 28,206 runners crossed the finish line. Soon after the race, however, a Facebook page was started that indicated many participants had been seen cutting the course. In one photo posted on the page, runners (their faces are obscured) appear to be taking the train during the race - though this has not been confirmed.

Derek Murphy, founder of the website Marathon Investigation, started looking into the results after the cheating allegations were brought to his attention. Once he analyzed the results, he noticed some peculiarities and posted his findings on September 12.

There were eight timing mats along the course, he noted, but only 64 percent of race finishers appear to have clocked in at every one of them. This means that 10,046 people missed at least one timing mat. 291 - a full one percent of the race's finishers appear to have missed all eight mats.

“At first I was like, there’s no way; that's a huge number of people,” Murphy told Runner's World by phone. “This is the most substantial number that I have ever seen.”

Watch: How to catch a race cheater



Read the rest at Runner’s World

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