Please take the time to read the original article on Ramon.
https://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2015/08/ramon-de-la-rosa-oakland-running.html
In summary, he missed the same mat from 2012 through 2015 at the Oakland Running festival, and the split times calculated where he missed the mat are impossible. He also missed a split at the 2014 San Jose 1/2 marathon.
You would think all of the information, this would have been an obvious DQ. The last response I received from the race director is:
“At this point there is not much I can do because it is 6 months after the event. Remind us next year and we will pay closer attention to his times.”
This was after I gave him examples of where other marathons DQ’d runners from as long as 3 years prior, and re-sent their list of BQs to the BAA to make sure that they did not use their inaccurate times to enter Boston. They could have easily banned him from entering the race in the future.
The 2016 race was this past weekend, and Ramon “ran” it. He again missed the 19.7 mile mat, and this time he covered the final 13.45 miles in 1:21:22 which is a 6:03 minute/mile pace. Not quite as fast as last year, but still way faster than the rest of the race.
Ramon has another 2016 Marathon time that seems more in line with what one would expect him to run. He finished the 2016 Napa Valley marathon in 4:39:21. The photos are linked below. He definitely looks more fatigued in those photos than the ones where he seemingly cut the course.
Shortly after I posted the initial article, he logged a time of 1:33:33 in the Santa Rosa half marathon. He missed the only split. Below are a couple of the photos of him on the course. Very similar to the photo posted of his 2014 San Jose RNR 1/2 marathon in the initial article.
Below are all of the relevant links. I will again reach out to the Race Director of Oakland, and will also send a note to the Santa Rosa Race Director.
As interesting and as obvious a case this is, the bigger story and the goal is to get some action and accountability on the part of the races to take action and spend a little bit of time to clean up the results, disqualify course cutters, and to ban repeat offenders.
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| Santa Rosa 1/2 Marathon |
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| Ramon leading the pack – 2015 Santa Rosa 1/2 |
2016 Oakland Running Festival Results
Race Photos – 2016 Oakland Running Festival
2015 Santa Rosa 1/2 Marathon Results
2015 Santa Rosa 1/2 marathon photos
2015 Santa Rosa 1/2 Marathon Finish Line Video – Ramon crosses at 23:00.
2016 Napa Valley Marathon photos – looks legit 4:39:21
2016 Napa Valley Marathon Results
I ran this race and I can see how someone can easily cut the course like this, if you look at the course map there is a point where the half marathoners join the full (around mile 19) and this is just two blocks from the final mile of the course. Both the half and full loop out through West Oakland for 5 miles before looping around Lake Merritt and back to the start. That's the most likely place to cut a course to me, it's also crazy there with thousands of half marathoners filling the streets. If he's not in any pictures at the "flaming arch" in West Oakland it's quite possible he took a shortcut before that.
I noticed that this runner is listed as DNF now for the 2016 Oakland Marathon.
Visited there last weekend with a group of friends, and had all the fun we could handle. I really like the ambiance at venues Chicago. There's a decent draft beer selection at a reasonable price and the bartenders are good at what they do.
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