Al Jazeera publishes piece on how alleged Olympic marathoner Ashley Uhl-Leavitt has a GoFundMe. Who?

By the time LetsRun is done with her, she will be a legend. Probably not in the way anyone wants to though

Is this any different than the “influencers” and mediocre sub elites who claim to be “professional runners”? I guess if you won a gift certificate at the local fun you can claim to be professional.

I'm also running the "Marathon Pour Tous" during the Olympics, which as someone else mentioned required completing challenges on an app that then put one into a lottery for each challenge completed. I never specifically set out to complete certain challenges, as my typical training easily covered almost every single one (the app is synced to my Strava/Garmin). It still took over a year for me to win a place from one of the lotteries. I am curious about any corporate sponsors or influencers getting entries to the marathon. I wouldn't be surprised by it, but I wonder what percentage it will be. From what I've read, there will be 20,024 participates in the marathon, and another 20,024 in the 10km, which is kind of surprising, but will likely be heavy on people from France.

It must be embarrassing to actually know these people by name and obviously follow them

Can you try again in English so we can understand your question...No she is a person not a marathon.

Yeah, I wonder if the person behind that registered handle ever takes a moment to realize they spend a lot of their limited life on just idly watching mediocre attention seekers.

The language of the GoFundMe has changed significantly.

Although it's still ridiculous to ask for $$ to go on a Paris vacation that includes a "race", at least it is no longer deceptive. Copy/pasted below from the (revised) GoFundMe:

This fundraiser is to help our friend and coworker, Ashley, run a marathon in Paris this summer during the Olympics. The following is a brief background that has lead up to this upcoming adventure:
The three of us, Ashley, Schuyler and I have worked together for nearly a decade and developed a special bond that we are very fortunate to have. We invest our efforts in helping others accomplish their goals, motivating, inspiring, and building others up.
Recently, Ashley has worked on completing a series of running goals as part of a challenge in order to potentially earn a spot in a lottery to compete in a marathon in Paris during the 2024 summer Olympic Games. After accomplishing these series of goals, we were beyond thrilled to find out that Ashley was offered a spot to run in the marathon. As any true friends or bad influences would do, we insisted that Ashley accept the offer that she worked hard for, and secure her spot. We were just as excited for the opportunity to support Ashley in this adventure as she was to find out that she had received the offer, so we bribed her with the fact that we would accompany her to Paris and support her through the process.
For those that may not fully understand, I might help clarify that we are not olympians, but personal trainers excited by the fact that our friend set a goal and worked hard at achieving it and has thus inspired us all by accomplishing her goal.
The exciting news regarding Ashley’s amazing opportunity to race amongst the summer games has began to spread and supporters have inquired about how to help our girl get across the finish line in Paris in less than six months. Schuyler and I have started this fundraiser as a convenient platform for those who wish to help Ashley get to Paris. The donations received will go towards expenses such as airfare, lodging, registration fees, potential bond money to post bail for our Paris shenanigans, and other various the expenses involved in Ashley chasing down this dream.

It doesn't help the people who already donated. She definitely benefited from the article, though. Her last donation was 27 days ago, and then just within the last 7 hours she has received $50 and $200.

I still haven't heard back from GoFundMe. The auto-generated email I received stated:

"Thank you for helping us keep GoFundMe safe. We are experiencing longer than normal wait times due to recent international crises. However, our Trust & Safety team has received your claim and will review it as soon as possible.

If you have evidence that might help our review, feel free to upload it using this secure form.

We also encourage you to contact law enforcement officials in your area if you believe this organizer is committing fraud or breaking the law in any way."

The language of the GoFundMe site was changed on 5/15/24 around mid-day. After reading your post, I reported the GoFundMe language as intentionally-misleading (which it clearly was, as it portrayed her as an Olympian). I am sure others reported it too. The language in the gofundme description was changed shortly thereafter but still is pretty sketchy language that could confuse some people into thinking they are helping some sort of elite athlete get their just desserts. The person controlling the gofundme is nuts.

I also sent them the link for the article someone posted from Canadian Running Magazine. That article did a good job exposing this fraud.

She’s nuts, a fraud.

runningmagazine.ca

Florida runner mounts curious GoFundMe for "Olympic marathon" journey - Canadian Running Magazine

Katrianna DeSante

Is she racing for gold, or just raking it in?

Open link

What books? Oh yeah, gay porn for kids.

I emailed the author. He says that the interviewee misled him and his editor. He is taking steps to get the article corrected.

This is what we NEED for the SPORT. We need people donating and helping other fellow runners, INSTEAD of BASHING them!

Nah, we need both. We can support and help runners by donating to legitimate fundraising campaigns (and for elites—watching race broadcasts, social media engagement, buying stuff from sponsors, paying USATF fees, etc.). And we can bash and report fools and charlatans in our sport, including dopers, abusive coaches, overpaid empty suits, and the people behind this deceptive GoFundMe page.

Nah, This is EXACTLY what we need, especially in this FK UP world we live in. hopefully many other agree and help this encouraging women out. WE should all be HELPING EACHOTHER regardless of any drama/etc.

Crush it in PARIS 2024!

Then show us confirmation of your contribution to Ashley Uhl-Leavitt. Demonstrate for us that there is no cause more worthy or needy than hers.