Frank Meza 2:53:10 at LA Marathon (70 years old) unofficial time (just finished)

Frank Meza Report wrote:

It's hard catching road racing cheaters in the act. Most racing cheats are found through split and photo analysis like Marathon Investigation and Letsrun. The sleuths here have uncovered a mountain of evidence to conclude Frank Meza is 100% guilty of cheating . It's incorrect to say posters on Letsrun dropped the ball. In fact we picked the ball up when no one else did. Thank you, Roderick, for bringing attention to his performance and a healthy dose of initial skepticism regarding potential cheating. It made people look for and provide even more evidence.

All of his racing times except for the trails are tainted. All of his age group record times should be vacated. In addition he should be banned from LAM and LBM where he's cheated the most.

That seems to be true. Anyone who sees the "mountains of evidence" here comes to clear conclusions. But obviously no one wants to initiate proceedings and the organizers do not care what this old man organizes. It's just annoying that people like him screw up the entire age grade tables, damaging all runners around the world, while he makes himself important with his strange results.

It's been briefly discussed, and is essentially why this thread was started, but how come such a remarkable 70+ marathon time did not garner much attention?

Gene Dykes ran a smoking fast time on an ineligible course and it was picked up by the AP and running sites.

This particular result was essentially overlooked.

I love how he “runs” with his head down, unlike every other runner in the world.

Meat Tornado wrote:

It's been briefly discussed, and is essentially why this thread was started, but how come such a remarkable 70+ marathon time did not garner much attention?

Gene Dykes ran a smoking fast time on an ineligible course and it was picked up by the AP and running sites.

This particular result was essentially overlooked.

I think the running media does not accept Frank's efforts.

For the record, Gene Dykes's 2:54:28 in Jacksonville was "ineligible" for a World age group record record only because the course was not "sanctioned." However, Jacksonville is a certified out and back course which otherwise is eligible for records.

That, and he gets to keep all of his results from previous years, which will be around forever. Meanwhile, all the other guys in his age group get pushed down a place. He was typically "finishing" marathons an hour+ faster than the actual winner of the age group. But I have a feeling we won't see any more world-beating performances from him.

"And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!"

What were the age group/masters overall awards in the races he won? In the biggest local race where I am, a cheater could have defrauded the actual AG winner out of a $10 gift card. That may not sound like much, but I worked hard for it and I want my gift card, dammit.

Frank has not a part of USATF in recent years. His results would have led the annual SoCal Road Racing Grand Prix and drawn great scrutiny from the competition. This is one reason he’s been able to fly under the radar for so long.

But not entirely under the radar. Note that the web site of the Association of Road Racing Statisticians (which has not been updated since Ken Young's death) included a couple of Frank's low-threes in its list of all-time fastest marathons in the 65-69 age group, putting him in some great company:

https://www.arrs.run/Veterans/VR6_Mara.htm

jesseriley wrote:

It’s laughable, we’ve got to keep it fun & still make cheaters look bad.

he who points the finger is the dimwit himself

Derek's done his in-depth investigation of the most marathon record so he should have some free time. I suggest he look into the anomalies in this thread and come to a conclusion. Long beach is a top 20 finish, 3rd or 4th Masters, 1st age group. Podium is affected if the result was not legit. If he looks into this case, I will donate to his site. He can find either nothing wrong or something wrong. Either way, I'll donate. If he finds nothing wrong, I'll accept that FM is legit. I just want him to look at the LAM and Long Beach and others.

https://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2019/05/i-ran-marathons-lies-and-faked-results.html

First post on this thread. Haven't been around for a few months. Are you telling me the guy who is number 3929 is claiming to have broken 3 hours?????? Sorry, with that body I'd think 3:30 would be a HUGE accomplishment. Not being mean, but...he looks like he's running 8:00 pace at best, maybe 9?

Mihaly Igloi was the coach at Loyola High in the late 60s thru 1970. Amazingly this guy disgraced that legacy.

He's in the half marathon, go easy on him.

I don't know whether putting his stamp on it would change anything after what has already been uncovered here, but cracking this, especially the how (assuming for the sake of argument cheating was involved), would be be a great story.

Dynamite wrote:

I don't know whether putting his stamp on it would change anything after what has already been uncovered here, but cracking this, especially the how (assuming for the sake of argument cheating was involved), would be be a great story.

He could pressure the RDs and the age group guy to vacate any invalid results.

completely agree; derek has lots of street cred with the race directors and running public. so, derek, please do your thing and expose this guy for what he is. the runners/fans who value integrity and fair play in this sport need your involvement. w/o it, we're letting this cheat get away, which is just plain wrong.

It will take someone with clout to email race directors and have the times stricken from the record, which Marathon Investigation has. However, plenty of hard evidence has been uncovered by Letsrun sleuths verifying Dr. Meza has cheated in numerous races over many years .

Well instead of everyone telling Derek to investigate this, when he isn't even posting in the thread and perhaps doesn't know about dear old Frank, let's hope everyone here is bombarding him with emails. The more the better.

I'm sending one with a link later. Oh, and a synopsis might be handy as there's a lot of posts to wade through...

just another nail in the coffin... i'm not sure if we definitively proved that fm cheated in the pasadena half in 2019, so here we go. photos and splits don't lie.

checkout the sequence of photos in the below link, which, based on the distance between runners and other factors appears to be during the later portion of the race.

https://freephotos.finisherpix.com/findnear/100457/1005009616

as you can see, fm is pictured in front of runner 1186 (1:25:32 - clock time) and 6380 (clock time of 1:25:34). fm's clock time is 1:27:37, and his 5K, 10K and 15K splits are considerably slower than those splits for both runner 1186 and runner 6380 (see below).

fm: 5K (clock time): 21:48

10K (clock time): 41:55

15K (clock time): 1:03:04

1186: 5K (clock time): 19:58

10K (clock time): 39:15

15K (clock time): 1:00:24

6380: 5K (clock time): 19:47

10K (clock time): 39:21

15K (clock time): 1:00:21

there's no reasonable/plausible/believable explanation as to why fm is ahead of these runners on the course at any point, let alone towards the finish, other than, that fm cut the course.

based on where the photos are taken and the splits, it's clear that fm cut the course, got in front of runners 1186 and 6380 only to be passed by those two runners (likely in the final mile or so as he rolled in at 8:20 pace).

derek, what more do you need? i've donated to your site and I (along with others) have done the leg work to provide sufficient evidence that fm cheated in numerous races (e.g., the la marathon 2019, 2018, 2015, the 2019 sprouts phoenix marathon , 2019 pasadena half, the 2018 la half marathon, numerous long beach marathons, etc., etc., etc.).

fm, come clean before derek exposes you for the cheat you are.