The willingness to cheat in low-stakes races is particularly baffling given that is has become exponentially harder to do so in recent years. I can’t quite prove it and then when I do, it’s a bit of a rush.’ ‘You’ll be looking at a runner and there’s nothing in their history to suggest they’re capable of the time they’ve clocked. ‘It’s a cat-and-mouse thing and there’s a bit of a thrill to it, definitely,’ he says. ‘It sent me down a rabbit hole from which I haven’t come up yet.’ He’s not sure whether runners are cheating more today, or just getting detected more often, but he believes cheats are getting ‘more creative’. ‘It started with a case I discovered of a runner who cut the course in a qualifying marathon,’ he says. He is measured, calm, analytical – about as far removed from a bile-spewing vigilante as one could hope to meet. Race splits, pacing stats, historical training data. Almost everything he needs is out there, he says. Murphy’s modus operandi is simple: relentless attention to numbers.
So successful has he become that he has informal agreements with a number of events around the world. The Cincinnati-based business analyst, who hung up his trainers when he ‘got older, got injuries, had kids’, now devotes every spare moment to catching and deterring ‘cheaters’, as he calls them, through his Marathon Investigation website.
She said she’d had a panic attack and got lost on the route.ĭerek Murphy has been at the forefront of exposing a string of amateur cheats. Race authorities asked her to explain the anomalies.
He was later disqualified.Īnd who can forget Natasha Argent, sister of TOWIE star James? The 26-year-old ran 3:48 in the London Marathon – not overly conspicuous until you learn that she ran the second half of the race in a miraculous sequence of sub-four- minute miles, and showed no record of passing several checkpoints. Then there are bib mules – those who carry two or more bibs around the course, registering bogus times for friends or even clients.įor those who keep tabs on this peculiarly modern phenomenon, the names of the most outrageous cheats trot off the tongue with the ease of a roster of Olympic champions: Jason Scotland-Thomson, the personal trainer who ran the second half of the 2014 London Marathon quicker than Mo Farah Rosie Ruiz, who was briefly the winner of the 1980 Boston marathon before it was discovered that she’d run only the final mile Rob Sloan, the Sunderland Harrier who was accused of hopping on a spectator bus at the 20-mile point of the Kielder Marathon, before rejoining the race and taking third. Other times it’s more flagrant: jumping a barrier to cleave chunks off the course, or hitching a lift to just short of the finish before soaking up the ill-deserved glory. Often it’s a corner for an incremental gain. Cutting the course is the most common form of cheating. Blogs and websites have been set up devoted to catching, exposing and deterring this curious sub-species. Numerous races report rises in anomalous results that require investigation, there’s a steady trickle of high-profile offenders, and running forums and message boards positively thrum with the issue. Cheating among amateur runners – and amateur cheating, come to that – is an increasingly common phenomenon, statistically and, particularly, anecdotally. But I’m certainly not alone in the wider running world. Wait till they get a load of this.Īm I the only cheat here today? Probably.
RACE INTO SPACE MONEY CHEAT FULL
My social media network is full of runners, quick runners. An eye-catching result, an ill-deserved boost to the self-esteem, a chance to indulge in a little online bragging. Nor to hit a qualifying time for a flagship race. Not for prize money, you understand (I’m not in that league). Two possible outcomes await: a personal best and a top-five finish, or a very public shaming. One way or another, the next hour is going to be eventful. I furtively scan the faces of my fellow runners, trying to avoid eye contact. Even the pre-race briefing is enough to get my heart thumping in my chest. I don’t usually get nervous before races, but today is different.
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