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Feb 2020
7:41am, 29 Feb 2020
192 posts
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milemonster
Hi All,
I've been interested recently in the psychology of dishonesty, what drives runners to be dishonest etc.
There is a brilliant (or sad really) website called marathon investigations and that guy also does a podcast.
Anyway, the reason I'm writing here is to ask if any Fetchies have some interesting stories of cheating in the running world?
Maybe you have cheated yourself (accidentally), or been in a race where you have seen someone cheat. What did you do about it?
Sorry, no real story from me apart from I had a good opportunity to cheat once as I cut a mile out of the Gut Buster 10 race and nobody noticed! I grassed myself up (I could have won too).
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Feb 2020
7:43am, 29 Feb 2020
193 posts
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milemonster
BTW I accidentally cut the miles out from doing a wrong turn.
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Feb 2020
8:12am, 29 Feb 2020
14,634 posts
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Autumnleaves
I know of someone who cheated in the New York Marathon (and indeed other races). He didn't get away with NYC for long as other runners quite swiftly pointed out his unlikely looking splits. He has boasted about the fact he cheats. I think he's an idiot myself - what is the point?
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Feb 2020
8:57am, 29 Feb 2020
194 posts
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milemonster
It's strange to boast about cheating.
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Feb 2020
8:57am, 29 Feb 2020
43,622 posts
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McGoohan
The only thing I can recall seeing is at parkrun, but relatively minor:
e.g. 'funnel-ducking' - where they have multiple finish funnels and people mostly don't want to wait and switch to a different one. I have a time that's out by over a minute due to folks doing that.
Even where there's only one funnel and they say 'keep in the order you finished' there are always a few who try to creep around you to get a higher-position finish token.
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Feb 2020
9:11am, 29 Feb 2020
8,070 posts
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BaronessBL
I organise and take part in quite a lot of trail races where runners follow a written narrative. If someone has local knowledge of the area the event is taking place in then cheating can be done relatively easily and it's also easy to claim it was a mistake, they read the wrong line of the instructions/missed a turn etc and 'had to get back to somewhere they knew where they were'. But I know there are some who will deliberately cut corners etc in order to finish higher up the placings - I've had other runners say to me 'I saw that X was going wrong so I tried to call him/her back but they can't have heard me' when I know full well that X is someone known to or suspected of regularly cheating.
The 'spirit' of these low key events is to call someone back who is going wrong and to rely on people being honest and follow the route even if they know the area well and know that there's a way to cut off a corner for example - but there is a very small minority who don't run in the 'spirit' of the event, knowing that it would be extremely difficult for an organiser to prove.
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Feb 2020
9:16am, 29 Feb 2020
3,486 posts
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Surrey Phil
The are so many races with out-and-back sections or short cuts that the temptation is always there. Like most of us, the fact that a finishing time is much less due to shorter distance covered, I could not look myself in the mirror and feel the satisfaction.
At the race I organise, I know our participants are honest but I always place marshals at potential short cuts and advise all of them to watch out for runners appearing from an another direction.
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Feb 2020
9:20am, 29 Feb 2020
3,487 posts
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Surrey Phil
I've seen someone I know cut a big corner during a half-marathon, say a couple of hundred yards. Other runners pointed this out to the marshals but they couldn't care less and he still got a finishing time.
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Feb 2020
9:35am, 29 Feb 2020
2,473 posts
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Fellrunning
I once took over someones number for a popular 10k without reading the conditions for entry. It wasn't until I got to the start that I realised it was against the rules (female and male entrants had different colour numbers and I'd taken over a female number). I fessed up straight away. I suppose at least I didn't have any dirty kit to wash. I felt quite guilty though that I'd prevented another runner from legitimately taking part. In my defence I was relatively inexperienced back then.
I've spent some time sitting on the FRA disciplinary committee. Cheating in Fell Running isn't that common and is normally restricted to teams fielding ineligible runners for relays or team events. We do get some real humdingers though. Obviously I can't go into details, but one did involve an off road motorcycle.
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Feb 2020
9:48am, 29 Feb 2020
43,625 posts
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McGoohan
And of course there was this:
In 1999, Sergio Motsoeneng ran the first 45 minutes of the 89km Comrades Marathon before he exchanged vests and shoes with his twin brother in a mobile toilet along the route. They again swapped later in the race to allow Motsoeneng to complete. Motsoeneng obtained 9th position and won a prize amounting to just under R6 000. Sergio and Fika Motsoeneng were caught after a newspaper published photos showing them wearing watches on opposite wrists. Upon admitting his guilt through his lawyer, Clem Harrington of Bethlehem, Motsoeneng said his actions were those of a desperate man from a poverty-stricken family. The two brothers were later suspended for ten years from participating in the race by the Comrades Marathon Association. In 2010, 11 years since his ban from the Comrades Marathon, Motsoeneng took part in the marathon again. He finished third, only to be plagued by another controversy when an unknown, banned substance was found in his system. After failing both tests, Motsoeneng lost all chances of receiving the gold medal and prize money to the amount of R 90 000. He is currently banned from the comrades for another 2 years. He maintains his innocence, claiming to have never used drugs.
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Cheating Marathon Man...?
May 2025