Rojo says he might start a Kip Litton thread but only 1 and only 1 thread

This thread should be a sticky until the case is solved.

Step up Brojos.

truth911 wrote:

there has to be a few people from jackson hole who post on letsrun... someone should start a thread asking about this mysterious marathon. or better yet get brojos involved. there is the risk that kip or his friends respond.

Someone who has facebook should contact these people (Jackson Hole running club):

They also don't list the marathon on the race calendar at their website:

Well, according to the tetontrail website, the WWM would have conflicted with the Targhee Hill climb on 7/3 (same date) and also the July 4th 10K. The WWM is so low cost, you dont even need to show up to run it.

Every low key race I've been in like this was put on by some locals for locals, maybe a few others show up. This race only one guy from Jackson Hole.

the diversity of residences is very suspicious indeed!!!

florida oldtimer wrote:

Well done guys, this is getting somewhere. Keep it up. I'm working on another angle, will post soon.

I'm on it.

notice how every singe name is a "normal" name? gosh, this is just getting crazy! i must admit, i am addicted to this soap opera at this point.

I sent an e-mail (read below from bottom up) to a person named Richard Rodriguez, who was identified in July on as the race director for the West Wyoming Marathon on its web site. At the time, I had no reason to suspect that West Wyoming wasn't one of Litton's legit marathons. Now I'm not so sure.

Having spoken to a lot of race directors and even to a guy whose business it is to run chip timing at Montana races, I have discovered that the chip mats are incredibly sensitive. One of the officials at the Missoula Marathon told me that he was at the 6am start with a runner's chip that had been found on the ground at the registration area the day before so that he could give it to him at the start. When he couldn't find the runner, he put it in his pocket. Later that day, he was on a scaffolding "sky bridge" over the fiish line helping with the announcing. Even though he was 20' up in the air, the chip mat still recorded multiple finishes of the chip in his pocket every time he moved. From this observation, I am pretty sure that all Litton has to do is get close to the mat and it will register that he crossed.

So I am convinced that Litton has probably used multiple methods to get his chip to register on the chip mats throughout the course. At Missoula, I'm convinced that he simply drove over the chip mats, since the course wasn't closed to traffic.

Here's the e-mail exchange from July with Richard Rodriguez (possible an alias for Kip Litton):

Dear xxx,

Wow, that's quite a scenario! It would have been very unlikely for the same thing to have happened at our race, as there were only 30 participants and the lead 2 runners ran almost the entire race together. I have not received any complaints. I will keep my ears open though. If there is an update, send it my way. Take care,

Richard

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From:

xxxx@xxxx.com

To:

rrrodriguez@live.com

Subject:

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:55:44 -0600

Hi - I'm writing to ask about the winner of your marathon a few weeks ago, Kip Litton. He was recently disqualified from the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon for cheating (not running the whole course. He is currently being investigated at the Missoula Marathon, where he apparently finished 6th, but likely did the same thing. I don't know the guy - I just hate cheating in running. I wonder whether he may have had a legitimate performance at your race or whether he may also have cheated in Wyoming.

Perhaps I'll make it down there for the race in a year or two!

Only 1 or 2 of these people exist:

http://www.athlinks.com/time.aspx?eventid=142322&courseid=193438&r=3908643&genderpage=m1

http://www.athlinks.com/time.aspx?eventid=142322&courseid=193438&r=82097081&mode=o&gender=F&page=1

Follow the links.

Go to the profiles of the claimed results. Only one of them has EVER run any race other than the West Wyoming marathon, and that's someone from LA named Joel Hernandez. Pretty sure that's an awfully common name in LA, and doesn't athlinks usually automatically add races to your profile if the name matches?

Oh yeah, and Joel Hernandez's last races were a 50:31 5k and 1:22:51 10k - followed by a 3:19 marathon at West Wyoming. I don't think it's the same guy.

Excellent work, all! This is fascinating. Making up a fake event? Now that's something else. No need to worry about mats and photographers. Just send a made-up list of "Joe Smith" and "Anna Rodriguez" finishers to athlinks and be sure to put your name as #1.

I am from Montana and I've checked with friends in Bozeman, Billings and Great Falls. None of my running friends know of Kelly Park from Great Falls, Michael Smith from Bozeman or David Hansen from Billings. I don't think they exist.

Coughman wrote:

the diversity of residences is very suspicious indeed!!!

Yes, and some of these finishers at this "West Wyoming Marathon" are Athlinks members, but when you click on their names to see their times at other races, there are no other performances. so do these people exist?

Here's an exception though - one guy with other performances besides Wyoming (may be a real person)

Then When you click on that profile, someone named Kevin Leddy, out of Kip's state (Michigan), posted "

Kevin Leddy wrote at 11:02 PM Jan 11:

Hi Joel, How did you like the West Wyoming Marathon? I see the website is down. I will be vacationing out there this year around that time Do you think they will run it next year? Thanks, Kevin"

Study of K.Litton Running wrote:

Yes, and some of these finishers at this "West Wyoming Marathon" are Athlinks members, but when you click on their names to see their times at other races, there are no other performances. so do these people exist?

Here's an exception though - one guy with other performances besides Wyoming (may be a real person)

http://www.athlinks.com/racer/82205522/joel-hernandez.aspx

Then When you click on that profile, someone named Kevin Leddy, out of Kip's state (Michigan), posted "

Kevin Leddy wrote at 11:02 PM Jan 11:

Hi Joel, How did you like the West Wyoming Marathon? I see the website is down. I will be vacationing out there this year around that time Do you think they will run it next year? Thanks, Kevin"

Hahaha pretty sure that's someone reading this thread since it was posted like 45 minutes ago.

Anyway, this is NOT the same Joel Hernandez.

In 2007 this guy was 39:

In 2010 Joel Hernandez in the West Wyoming Marathon was 40.

Looks like a result that was automatically added into some random person's profile just because he has a common name

If WWM did in fact take place, and there is no way Kippy could have cut it, the more likely scenario for him running 2:56 is that the course was short. Come on, after all, small event like that, i say it is easier for him to rig it than to make it up!

Zapruder wrote:

Every low key race I've been in like this was put on by some locals for locals, maybe a few others show up. This race only one guy from Jackson Hole.

Except that according to both a people search site (veromi.net) and whitepages.com, the closest Andrew Scott lives 200+ miles from Jackson, and he is listed as 38, not 33. There is only one result for any Andrew Scott from WY listed on athlinks - this race.

I looked up a handful of the other participants on the same sites with similar results.

Besides Kip, 4 of the purported WWM finishers are athlinks members. All 4 became members b/w 10/9 and 10/15/10. Three of them (joseph smith, sue johnson and donna dixon) had this as their only result. The fourth, joel hernandez, lists 3:11 for the WWM in addition to two other results, both from 2007 and both in southern CA - a 50:31 5K (DFL) and a 1:22:51 10K (DFL except for an 89 yr old that did 2:10). Did Kip create an account for the real hernandez and "claim" the two prior results to go with the WWM result? Could he possibly have hacked the results 3 yrs later to add a fictional hernandez to the two 2007 races?

It is clear that all these people are completely made up (or in one case perhaps, a real person whose results from 3 yrs ago may have been co-opted for these purposes).

My assumption is that it wouldn't be possible since timing companies can print out results in real time at the finish, but given that Kip seems to be fairly adept with a computer, rather than playing games with chips on the course, could he somehow be hacking results after the fact?

And if I find out any of these fake finishers from WWM took my boston spot, there will be hell to pay.

Earlier, Liptodakip wrote:Still curious about the west Wyoming marathon. 29 runners total. ... did he make up an entire race? That would be bold!

Lone Gunman wrote:

... Notice the finisher names....they are all very vanilla names like if one had to, hypothetically speaking, make up 29 names:

More news, everyone. If you look up Kip Litton at athlinks.com, some recent unclaimed results appear:

Pine Hills 5k 2010 49 FL 12/04 17:42

Sandy Springs Half Marathon 2010 49 GA 11/20 1:20:44

Note that the ages are 49.

Let's investigate those two races.

Pine Hills 5k

Sat, Dec 4, 2010 Orlando, Florida, USA

Male Results

A G O Athlete M/F A Bib Final Pace Claim!

1 1 1 Adam Rivera M 19 - 16:51 05:25

1 2 2 John Grant M 21 - 17:38 05:40

1 3 3 Kip Litton M 49 - 17:42 05:41

1 4 4 jeff short M 31 - 17:51 05:44

1 5 5 David Larsen M 38 - 18:23 05:55

2 6 6 Tim White M 22 - 18:49 06:03

1 7 8 Phil Lambert M 41 - 19:48 06:22

2 8 9 Andrew Davis M 37 - 20:11 06:29

3 9 11 paul dixon M 36 - 20:55 06:43

4 10 12 Raul Ramirez M 38 - 21:18 06:51

5 11 14 Tad Lewis M 37 - 22:22 07:11

2 12 15 Keith Cooper M 44 - 22:55 07:22

3 13 16 Jason Luck M 20 - 23:33 07:34

1 14 17 Sergio Lopez M 51 - 24:08 07:46

1 15 19 Robert Lowe M 56 - 25:28 08:11

2 16 20 Mitch Black M 58 - 26:12 08:25

3 17 22 rick bowen M 43 - 26:52 08:38

1 18 23 Gary Wagner M 27 - 27:22 08:48

2 19 24 Sue List M 32 - 27:44 08:55

3 20 25 Heather List M 32 - 27:45 08:55

3 21 26 Don Reed M 58 - 28:24 09:08

4 22 27 Hector Heart M 59 - 29:01 09:20

2 23 30 Mike Gault M 45 - 32:43 10:31

1 24 34 Fred Spire M 63 - 35:32 11:26

2 25 35 Gary Orlish M 61 - 36:44 11:49

5 26 40 Steve Poke M 59 - 40:09 12:55

2 27 41 Ken Gross M 51 - 41:28 13:20

1) Also short names.

2) Also, as for the West Wyoming Marathon: no bib numbers

3) Sue List and Heather List are included in the male results.

4) There were 19 women runners for a total of 46 finishers. This race is listed as having taken place in Orlando. Anyone know of any 5K in a city as large as Orlando that would only have 46 finishers?

5) Click on the link for the official website,

Surprise, surprise! "Error 403 - Forbidden" reported.

6) Google "Pine Hills 5K" and Orlando - you get athlinks.com results, the error producing site, and an irrelevant hit.

How about the Sandy Springs Half Marathon?

Sat, Nov 20, 2010 Atlanta, Georgia

1) Short names.

2) No bib numbers.

3) 26 total finishers.

4) Official website? Wow - something appears! With an e-mail contact! And just a list of results. Nothing else.

5) Google listings? athlinks.com and the 'official' website only.

And did this major city marathon that had a whopping 26 'finishers' appear in a comprehensive listing of Georgia half-marathons for 2010-11? NO.

By the way, the Atlanta Half Marathon was held on 11/25/10. How many finishers did it have? 8888!

When did the original letsrun forum on this topic come out? You figure out the connection!

I wonder how many imaginary friends Skippy had as a kid?

registered athlinks users in the results for pine hills and sandy springs have similar pattern as the ones in my post above - either this is their only result, or there is one or two other results and the times are way off from the ones in these races. sandy springs finishers all registered with athlinks on 12/30, pine hills all on 1/6.

jeff short from pine hills is peculiar - three prior results, all fairly consistent with each other (but not pine hills) and all in northern michigan. but the hometown in the profile is listed as orlando.