Another marathon cheating story

Would be interesting to know more. For instance, if the new winner could see the DQ'd gal throughout the race, or if other runners saw her - there must be people that finished in about the same time that the reporter could have asked.

Not very good investigative journalism.

At this point, you don't know if it was cheating or an unfortunate mistake.

If you look at the course map, it does at least look like miles 17 and 18 would be easy ones to cut:

http://www.sarasotamarathon.com/pdf/08Full_Map_Final_Rev.pdf

Hmmmm, interesting that she had ran time fairly close to that before... Her time seems reasonable for her history...

That's weird, she was in about 13th place at 14 miles, missed the 17 mile mat, then finished in 19th place. If she cut the course, she sure did it in a round about manner. They should talk to the six people who passed her. Guys tend to remember passing a woman at the front.

Results:

http://www.sarasotamarathon.com/pdf/08fulloverallwithsplitsv2.txt

Map:

http://www.sarasotamarathon.com/pdf/08Full_Map_Final_Rev.pdf

I ran in the half marathon at sarasota. It was a great race, the previous year they had some problems with the turnaround for the 1/2 marathon but it seemed this year all of the course was clearly marked. Sorry that she lost the watch, $4k watch must be nice.

Here is another link.

http://harlemrunner.blogspot.com/2008/03/sarasota-marathon-winner-pulls-katie.html

Race spotters did not see here and were looking for the leaders.

When you look at the map it would be VERY EASY to cut off 2 miles as there is an out and back section there. You could go from 16.25 miles to the 19 mile mark with no trouble at all.

The link I posted to has someone saying she may not have realized they put another mat out there to catch this exact type of cheating.

Not only did she miss the mat at mile 17, the newspaper article says she missed the mat at mile 18.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080306/SPORTS/803060743

It is also interesting that the splits do not give times for the 18 miles split. It looks exactly like the organizers did this to catch people. Good for them.

She does have one other time around the time she finished at, but also the article seems to show times arounf 3:30 as well.

interesting fourth place finisher.

Another interesting finisher is Kathleen Trotter in 435th place. Finish time 5:11.

She was at 3 HOURS 33 minutes through 14 miles. A 15:12 pace.

She finished in 5:11, which is a total pace for the entire race of 11:51 mpp.

She made up about an HOUR of time as compared to the people she finished near. Those runners were generally around 2:20-40 at the 14 mile mark. She also missed the 17 mile mat as well.

So for the last 12.21 miles she ran a 1:38 which translates into a pace of 8 minutes miles. She nearly doubled her pace for the last half of the race. Talk about negative splitting.

According to marathonguide.com, she ran a marathon in February of this year in 6:34. So in less than a month she took off 1 hour and 20 minutes from her time.

There is another woman with the same name who is faster, but they have different ages and line in different countries.

Yeah, I think the people who wind up writing these articles on road races are the ones who somehow pissed off the boss at the newspaper.

I'm sure some of us have been "interviewed" after winning the local Save The Whales 5K or whatever. It's always comical to read the story in the paper the next day to see what kind of stuff they add in.

Interesting . Local road race several months ago ,guy who is ahead of me walks off the course with about 1mile and 1/2 to go. Later I see the results and he beats me by almost 2 minutes. He wore very distinctive clothing. Nobody passed me from that point in. Anyway, w/o conclusive evidence ,I did nothing .This person was not in contention for overall or age group award,nor was I. But this sure left me frustrated and confused.

3 hours and 13 minutes to win a $4,000 Baume & Mercier watch - standard wasn't that good.

That second article mentions that Katie Holmes cut the NY marathon course. I know that there are arguments / pictures / some evidence, but did anybody prove 100% that Katie cut the course?

FrankFrank wrote:

That second article mentions that Katie Holmes cut the NY marathon course. I know that there are arguments / pictures / some evidence, but did anybody prove 100% that Katie cut the course?

It's not an article, it's a blog. There's no rules in the blogosphere.

I noticed that too and concluded that the mat at 17 miles was probably more like 17.25 miles.

6packjack wrote:

Not only did she miss the mat at mile 17, the newspaper article says she missed the mat at mile 18.

Actually there was only one mat near Ken Thompson Park and it was at a col de sac at about 17.8 miles based on my Garmin. The other one was at about 14.5 also based on my same Garmin.

No one usually pays attention to this race but if someone cheats look out, LOL.

I ran that race the first year, and it doesn't look like it's improved that much. The course is somewhat reversed from then, but many of the mile markers were way off, inaccurately placed. It's supposed to be a certified course, but i'd really question whether it is.

But just because it's certified doesn't mean the race director put the mile markers in the right place.

Threads exposing cheaters are among my favorite.

The first year they held this race the leaders were cranking out splits of 4:30 or so for some of the final miles and the consensus was that it was a half mile short. The results stood as listed with no remeasurement or note in the results and people who qualified for Boston by <5 min were probably pleased at their good fortune. I heard from people who ran this year that the splits were screwy and one guy claimed he ran tangents and came up with 26.65 but that is typical of GPS.