ouch1000 wrote:
I don’t post very frequently, but I religiously catch up on this crazy thread every night, since I’ve been in on the story from the start.
For fun, here’s a summary of how the Kip Litton investigation began, as far as I know it. Most of this focuses on how I learned about the situation. (Having re-read just now what I wrote below, I suppose it comes across as kind of self-congratulatory, but my intention was to make sure that the record of my own investigation gets up on the web somewhere for posterity.) If you’ve read all 800 of these LR posts along with the previous deleted threads, you may know most of this. I don’t think, however, that the early investigations were clearly laid out:
I wish I could say that I was the first one who caught Litton cheating, but that was actually Kip himself in the 2009 Crim 10 mi. According to Clarkston Kent, who I’ve conversed with by e-mail outside of this thread, he dropped out after 5 mi, then inexplicably, he appeared near the finish line and ran across. Later, he asked that his results be removed, which they did for the awards that day. However, no-one ever removed him from the automated finish results, so he still shows up as having run sub-56.
Two months later, Clarkston Kent, along with some other folks at the Detroit Free Press relay questioned him intensively about cheating on his leg, and eventually he confessed that he “must have taken a wrong turn.”
As far as I know, the trail got cold for awhile at that point, as Kip continued to cheat in late 2009 and early 2010. However, when Litton ran the Deadwood Michelson Trail Marathon in June of 2010, he apparently got too greedy or too careless, as he was DQ’d by the race director. See my previous post this evening for more info.
I hope that 2011 brings a conclusion to this story and if the stars align, a detailed expose in a major publication, like RW or RT.
It must've taken you awhile to compose your summary ouch1000! Well done - right on the mark.
About the Freep Marathon relay DQ: it wasn't until a day after the event that the runner on the 2nd leg of the team that finished 2nd said, 'something ain't right'. He got the pass from the leg 1 runner before Kip's team came in. He didn't remember being passed by any members of other relay teams before he handed off to leg 3 - yet somehow Kip handed off before him. Therein was the problem. The USATF official of the race corresponded with Kip who offered little in the way of a defense other than 'I just thought I had a good day'. The USATF official DQ'd Kip's team - who were mightily pissed off with the man from Clarkston.
I learned of this about a week later and, intrigued, contacted Kip and asked him about the situation. I had in hand the correspondence between Kip & the USATF official which was pretty bare on believable explanations. In my correspondence, Kip was just as vague about what happened as with the USATF official. I pointed out that I know he didn't run the whole leg - his time simply didn't add up. He confessed he might've taken a wrong turn and 'must've followed somebody'. Of course, he didn't follow anybody. He took a shortcut, lopping off over a mile on his leg. I thought I was done with him until he started up with his cheating ways in Winter '10.
About a story appearing in one of the national running publications - there's nothing stopping anybody here from contacting them. Meanwhile, I'll continue to 'monitor' the zany tale from this end.
