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

marathoninvestigation.com

131–140 of 197 posts

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

#131
I am surprised by the new, gentle and forgiving approach of the crowd towards this runner here. It contrasts drastically with some attacks I see here against some politicians or corporate leaders when they fail to meet the HN-echo chamber standards.

Also, isn't this what the media usually does? Find dirt and expose it, damn the consequences to those involved?

Damsel in Distress?

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

#132
post #87

For me the most interesting tidbit is that she biked the entire race afterwards in a cover up attempt. Are there any studies on doing something wrong and escalating it with coverup attempts? Or is there a name for this that I'm not aware of? I know it has to be the theme of at least one classical drama...sort of a reverse "Hans in Luck" of sorts...I dunno. I have witnessed this pattern before and the spiral that pers…

Marcus Einfeld comes to mind. A formerly well respected Australian judge who perjured himself over a $77 speeding ticket by blaming it on dead Americans and received 3 years in prison for the string of lies he told to trying to cover it up. Madness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Einfeld#Criminal_convic...

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

#133

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…

May I piggyback on this tangent ?

I really want a real-time heartrate monitor but have been convinced that the wristwatch heartrate monitors are quite inaccurate compared to the chest straps ...

But I also need a simple timer/chronograph. Do I need two devices or is there a chest strap HR monitor that has a simple timer/watch/chrono built into it ?

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

#134
post #104
post #57

You would think the turnaround point would be a natural place for the race organisers to put a timing mat. They would capture an extra split time and be able to automatically identify runners succumbing to this temptation.

Timing mats are usually placed at the same distance in every race: 5k, 10k, 13.1mi, etc. Adding extra mats probably means more cost. That didn't prevent the 2016 Philadelphia Marathon organizers from placing an unannounced mat at a turnaround point 22 miles into the race. It helped them catch hundreds of cheaters. And even if you can afford the extra mats, another challenge is where to place them. It's obvious with a…

"That didn't prevent the 2016 Philadelphia Marathon organizers from placing an unannounced mat at a turnaround point 22 miles into the race. It helped them catch hundreds of cheaters."

That sounds like a nice and easy way to weed out a lot of cheaters - every race has one or two randomly placed timing mats.

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

#135
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…

Cheating is endemic in the sport and finding these people can quickly become it's own kind of game. So, IMO there is nothing odd with this effort. EX: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Philadelphia-Marat...

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

#136
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commend your call to sympathy. I don't like taking a drive-by, salacious interest in a story that doesn't affect me in the least, but will probably have serious, perhaps devastating consequences for the person involved for a long time professionally. I also think it's worth pointing out that the original article, while using photos of the person involved, never uses their full name, so is to some extent not google-…

Maybe it's only me, but I don't see any "shame-fest" here. The article is facts based and points to concrete wrongdoings, not simply taking some moral stand. "what is ultimately a relatively trivial, presumably non-criminal misdeed." While it's not criminal behavior, it must be discouraged and punished as it does tremendous damage to competitive sports and other sportsmen by discouraging them ("What's the point? Ever…

It doesn't take a million strong Internet mob to punish an individual behavior. This bandwagon/mob/piling-on instinct may have served us well in the wild west or in small villages of a few dozen to few hundred people, but is highly inappropriate in the digital realm where the "village" consists of billions of people worldwide.

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

#137
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…

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 still rank high on search engines for her cheating 10/30/X years from now.

EDIT: Not trying to excuse the terrible act of cheating she engaged in, but I think it is important to realize the role of the internet as a permanent record of everyone's (mis)deeds, regardless of whether it was a crime or not.

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

#138
post #126
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…

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 mean, sure, it's not cool to cheat, but this ain't the Olympics. Who gives a shit?

Nothing is getting "stolen," especially not if you weren't in the top 10 or whatever.

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

#139
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…

Back in the days when you could buy 7,000+ twitter followers for $5 on Fiverr I use to buy followers for people all the time for fun. Friends from high school with very silly twitter account would wake up with 7,000 new followers. I also bought followers for small companies from time to time because I really enjoyed them. I noticed that their own real followers would increase after that. Confirmed this with my own twitter account.

I made the conclusion that people are more likely to follow a account that already has a lot of followers. So if the first 7,000 are fake the next 1000 or 2000 will be real and actually valuable followers.

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

#140

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…

It says so in the article, it is the Garmin Forerunner 230 or 235. The 230 uses a chest strap for heart rate, the 235 has optical heart rate built in. The software is Garmin's. To connect the watch and get the data off it you can use Garmin Connect (works via your phone and bluetooth) or you can connect the watch with a wire and use it as you would a regular hard drive. The files on a Garmin are saved as .FIT files. I use a Garmin Forerunner 225 and am quite happy with it.
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