Ethiopians and Kenyans bought off in Beijing Half Marathon?

Yeah I saw a thread about 11 hours ago.

anyway, this is embarrassingly obvious. Why not fake an injury at 10 miles?

I saw this story yesterday, too. Apparently at least one of the Africans (not sure which one(s)) claimed after the race that he was just a pacer for He Jie. Said "I don't know why they didn't give me a bib that said "PACER""

Wouldn't be surprised if the city (maybe even the country?) had some type of role in this

An obvious "fix".

How is having pacers suddenly a big deal? From the start it looks like they were blocking the wind/pacing for him. I suppose it’s unfair if he was the only one with pacers but they have them in most big marathons. Doesn’t one of the sites founders claim to have paced a women’s world record? Did he step aside and let her beat him, because I suppose that should be a scandal.

Looks like same as Kipchoge sub2 attempt to me

Could be.

Gambling is strong in China.

I remember I read about some horse race gambling controversies that were happening there.

Puts me in mind of the Pyongyang Marathon where they have North Korean elites vs hobbyists from the rest of the world. Then when the homeland's elites win, the papers portray it as if the hobbyists are top foreign runners and look at how dumb they are with their selfie-sticks- and such, not like our North Korea heroes.

Not sure if Clayton Young letting Mantz win the US Trials or if this is more embarrassing. Probably Young letting Mantz win since it was a race with more on the line.

I can't believe this is getting coverage on CNN, NY Times, etc.

I also can't believe that He Jie who ran a 2:06:57 NR marathon on Mach 24 would be running a half marathon so soon. Clearly he can destroy the half record.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/sports/beijing-half-marathon-controversy-he-jie.html?unlocked_article_code=1.k00.fTEF.XnpPQwwMK9La&smid=url-share

The optics aren't good but when a male pacer drops back at mile 25 (like Weldon didn when he paced Paula Radcliffe) no one freaks out.

They should have told them to drop out at the 13 mile mark.

Weldon didn't "drop back though did he? He got 'dropped'. Big difference.

How do you know they didn't just change genders halfway through....? Check yourself

As usual, you are wrong.

This fairly irrelevant story has been eagerly covered by most of the major western media outlets because they are at the end of the day controlled by western intelligence agencies (google Operation Mockingbird and read about what Seymour Hersh and Carl Bernstein uncovered in the 70s).

They are promoting this story because it portrays China as corrupt, and these days they are looking for whatever angle they can find to sway public opinion in an anti-Chinese direction, in order to mentally prepare the public for the intense geopolitical rivalry and second Cold War which the western security establishment is pushing us towards.

Totally agree.

Chinese runners tend to race a lot, which is quite different than the western runners. The main reason is that the sponsors want them to do so to promote the products.

Hullo ... McFly ... China IS corrupt.