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Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

marathoninvestigation.com

161–170 of 197 posts

Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspapers are about public shaming and a significant portion of the public is sick of it. I mean, look at what the WSJ tried to do to PewDiePie, how the rest of the media piled on, and how people reacted.

PewDiePie was a public figure already. The person in the article was not. The person caught cheating has no platform from which to defend themselves. PewDiePie made $15million from his platform.

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Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspapers are about public shaming and a significant portion of the public is sick of it. I mean, look at what the WSJ tried to do to PewDiePie, how the rest of the media piled on, and how people reacted.

PewDiePie was a public figure already. The person in the article was not. The person caught cheating has no platform from which to defend themselves. PewDiePie made $15million from his platform.

PewDiePie is hardly the first person this has happened to.

A Huffington Post writer is at least as much a public figure as a scientist with the ESA, and has more of a platform for self defense.

Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#163
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the point as well. The newspaper coverage of her public deception and lying is on par with the benefits that she would otherwise try to benefit from by building up her image on fake wins and defrauding people who have trained harder to get those same results - and somehow we're supposed to give her a pass because she might want to have another public trust position in the future? She should work an…

For the record, I absolutely do not condone what she did. What she did was very dishonest and she has paid the price. Merely pointing out what has already been said elsewhere in the thread that the internet, as a medium of communication, can deliver outsized punishments long after any "crime" has been committed.

Outing any wrongdoing in a position of public trust can deliver punishment, whether that's outsized or not depends on the context and what they were trying to gain from it. If she weren't a sponsored lifestyle blogger, then I would agree that this was an exaggeration, but given the fact that the then conspired to cover her tracks is damning enough to get labeled as a cheater in the race's public records. She had to know that it would be possible to permanently damage her image but judged the risks lower than the benefits, and that's on her, not the public that she tried to mislead.

Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspapers are about public shaming and a significant portion of the public is sick of it. I mean, look at what the WSJ tried to do to PewDiePie, how the rest of the media piled on, and how people reacted.

PewDiePie was a public figure already. The person in the article was not. The person caught cheating has no platform from which to defend themselves. PewDiePie made $15million from his platform.

You are setting your own personal threshold here's that many people won't agree with. She put herself out there as a paid blogger with her name attached to her work. Shes as much a public figure in her niche circle as pewddiepie is a public figure in his niche circle.

The money difference is irrelevant, the NASA scientists who made that announcement yesterday are much closer to her earning level than they are to pewdiepie and much more well known than either.

She has the same platforms available to post her rebuttal as pewdiepie does, the medium she used for all her articles.

Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#165
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should someone who cheated at a PUBLIC event and very publicly claimed the prize and actively misled other runners and the judging committee not be exposed publicly? Is it not in the public interest to punish these peoples? Or should we never report on such misdeeds for fear of any personal and professional retribution? Isn't that part of being a responsible adult in a civil society? She's a sponsored running/lif…

I think you are missing his point. There is nothing wrong with the methodology (using her own Garmin watch as conclusive evidence) but there is something to be said about the medium through which she was exposed (the Internet). The problem is the Internet never forgets so even if she learns a hard lesson from her actions and chooses to become a changed person (ala becoming a coach/public speaker/etc), her name will s…

And this is called being responsible for one's own actions. It is harder in the Internet age, and you pay for poor choices longer, but it is life today. Maybe her story will encourage the next person considering cheating of not doing it. The internet has almost regressed social things to become somewhat tribal. "The internet says this person is bad, so they are bad" kind of tribal.

Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheating and doping both make me very angry as a casual athlete. I don't let it ruin my day, but it annoys me. Like come on, we are training 10h a week to go pay money to run a race and get a $1 medal. Let's kinda sorta keep it fair?

Obviously, I'm not gonna defend those behaviors. It's kind of a cliche, but they're really only cheating themselves. As for the rest of us, who are we really racing against? Sure, there are the handful of jerks who you battle it out with on the local scene... and if one of those guys were to cheat, you're right, that would feel personal and that would piss me off. But if some other random runner cut the course? Aren'…

Yes and that is how I stay sane. However I really like to see how I rank.. like "Last year I ran in the 50th percentile, this year I ran in the 90th". 1 cheater, meh. 100 cheaters? Meh messed up my math ;)

Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#167

Not to be too tangential but I'm actually looking for a good running watch (I'm just getting back into running) and possibly heart rate monitor + gps. I noticed in the article they show her watch (to show the discrepancy in distance). What watch is that? What is the running software? EDIT (I missed the Garmin 235 link and paragraph). I am not sure how I missed it over and over (I was using my phone) and yes I feel du…

I'd love to recommend the Polar M600 which I have owned since the beginning of this year. It is one ugly Android Wear watch but in terms of functionality and features I do not regret the purchase one bit. It has built in GPS and a pretty accurate heart-rate monitor and superb battery life which is around a day and a half which includes a daily 5-7mile 50min to a 1.5hr run with GPS and HR monitor active and music streaming to my BT earphones to boot during said runs (streaming from the watch not phone which is left in the car mind you).

A review on Amazon pretty much sums up all the bullet points for what I was looking for and meets and or exceeds all of them:

- GPS tracking

- Heart rate monitor

- Onboard music storage

- Smart notifications

- Battery life

https://www.amazon.com/Polar-Smart-Sports-Watch-black/dp/B01...

Also the Android Wear 2.0 update has been confirmed coming down the pipe to this watch as well this spring.

Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#168
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree that it's innocent. Competitors in marathons (the ones that have a chance of winning especially) have put a lot of time, energy, effort, and pain into training to be successful. To have their rewards for that effort and commitment stolen by someone who didn't earn it is not fair and should be scrutinized and called out. To call this "trivial" seems like maybe you have no interest or experience with mara…

A little surprised to see this on the front page of HN, but I don't think we can deny that running is probably the nerdiest of sports. Anyway, that's nice that she owned up to it. Most of the cheaters don't. As a guy who's no doubt proved my running bonafides -- 3:06 marathon pr + there's a picture of me on the Western States 100 wikipedia page -- I always wonder why people get so angry about this kind of thing. I me…

It took several attempts at doubling down on the deception (riding the course on her bike and posting the Strava trace) and being repeatedly called out before she gave up and admitted it.

Not nearly as laudable as admitting it as soon as someone accused her of cheating.

Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, sure, it's not cool to cheat, but this ain't the Olympics. Who gives a shit? People who value fair play and personal honor more highly than you do. (well, you asked) > Nothing is getting "stolen," Those whose rankings are affected by the cheater have had something taken from them.

"God dammit! Don't you know who I am? I finished 355th at the North Face 50 Mile National Championships!" I mean... on some level, I get you. On another, though, I can assure you that no one cares about your marathon time or finishing place, unless you're at an elite level.

This was a weak field local race with no prize money. She cheated out the top 3 female runners for bragging rights, that's really it.

In a better stacked race her time would have been much further down in the AG ranks, not competing for overall.

Re: Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

#170
post #20

Regardless of the cheating, this type of post doesn't fully sit right with me. Given the permanence of record on the internet, this does bring up the issue of how we police bad behavior, and how we incorporate forgiveness into that. That said, the poster was pretty fair, and generally refer to her as "the runner". It definitely reads as an obsessive sleuthing, no doubt in part because there were follow-on discoveries…

This runner cheated consciously, lied afterward, covered up the cheat with a conspiracy later (biking the route to create a fake data trail). Its hard to smear any investigation as 'obsessive' compared to that. And cheating at public events is not innocent. Its a rupture of the social contract, up there with stealing and libel. It should be dealt with promptly and vigorously. She should be banned from all further eve…

I think those who would forgive her believe that the response is disproportionate, and that the cheating doesn't rate worldwide infamy. I guess I side with runnr_az on this in that what she did is not right but it also isn't very important. But maybe he and I share the same worldview on running and racing, in that in almost all cases racing's value comes from doing the race, not the result. Yes, in the moment I'll do whatever I can to scratch out one higher place in the result, but after the race is done it really doesn't matter if I got 23rd or 123rd. Those that finished faster could have trained harder, trained more, had more experience, had better coaching, had better genetics, or even cheated, but I found that in the end those places don't matter nearly as much as the experience I got, and even if I found out that one or five or twenty people had cheated in the races I've done, it wouldn't have taken away from that experience.

I guess if one subscribes to the race-as-life metaphor, where cheating in a race is tantamount to stealing from someone, and how one acts in a race is how one will act in the rest of life, I can see more reasons to get angry, but I think that viewing this as "rupturing the social contract" is a more extreme view, and is entering the area that Hugo was exploring with the Inspector Javert character. Yes, she cheated, yes it's wrong, and yes, she should face consequences, but how much mental energy should we expend in the pursuit and punishment of this cheating? I think I'm almost as disturbed by the obsession with the cheating as by the cheating itself.

Maybe this thinking is objectively wrong, but at least for me that's why, if forgiveness means not to ban her from all future events, my impulse is to forgive.

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