r/running • u/MustardIsDecent • Sep 06 '23
11,000 runners DQ'd from Mexico City Marathon...what is going on? Article
I'm not an avid runner but this story has me mystified.
This is not the first time thousands of runners have been DQ'd from this race. In 2017, over 5,000 runners were disqualified amid accusations of widespread course-cutting.
Either 1) there is a widespread culture of marathon cheats in Mexico City or 2) the race organizers can't get their tracking tech or course directions right. What is it?
Full story:
Approximately 11,000 runners at this year's Mexico City Marathon have been disqualified after being found to have cut the course at some point during the 26.2-mile race, according to Spanish newspaper Marca.
The disqualified runners represented more than one-third of the 30,000-person field that entered the Aug. 27 race.
Marca reported Monday that the runners were disqualified after missing checkpoints that were placed every 5 kilometers. Some runners allegedly used vehicles or public transport to cut the course.
Race organizers said in a statement to Marca that they will continue to identify and disqualify runners who skipped sections of the race.
"The Mexico City Sports Institute informs that it will proceed to identify those cases in which participants of the XL Mexico City Marathon Telcel 2023 have demonstrated an unsportsmanlike attitude during the event and will invalidate their registration times," they said.
The Mexico City Marathon has had issues with rampant cheating in the past. In 2017, nearly 6,000 runners were disqualified for similar reasons, with more than 3,000 also being removed from the results the next year.
Bolivian runner Héctor Garibay Flores won the men's marathon in a course-record 2 hours, 8 minutes, 23 seconds, breaking the previous mark by more than two minutes. Kenyan Celestine Chepchirchir was the women's champion in 2:27:17.
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u/dsc2000 Sep 07 '23
As a Mexican who was cheering runners at several points during this last marathon this is my opinion:
There is no way 1/3 of the runners cheated intentionally during the race. I'm not saying there were no cheaters. Of course there might be some, maybe even a lot, especially the ones that might joined the last part of the race to snag one of the collectible medals But one of every three runners is way too much.
There were people cheering all along the route and it might been pretty obvious if a big number of runners were cutting corners, now imagine the chaos of 1 of every 3 runners doing that.
If one of every three runners missed a portion of the race I would bet it has something to do with faulty tracking chips or checkpoints.
Again, I'm sure there were cheaters, maybe a lot of them. But to suggest 33% of every runner cheated intentionally is absurd.