As part of the Boston Project that was outlined in Runner’s World, we flagged runners to review that finished in a significantly slower time than their Boston bib # would predict. 4 Runners were initially flagged that qualified at the 2014 Monte St. Michel Marathon.
As a point to point course, it would seem that course cutting would be impossible.
The first one we flagged was Olivier Guilhen, A search of the race’s results page shows this:
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| click to enlarge – shows identical splits to another runner |
There is also clickable finish line video that shows the runners wearing bibs 2853 and 427 crossing the finish line at 3:09:50. But Guilhen (bib #7433) is missing. He also has no photos on the course. At this point I felt that the runner with identical splits carried the bib during the race.
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| Olivier Guilhen Finish Video |
The next runner we flagged was Xavier Deltin. with a clock time of 3:04:55. If you look at the video, you can see that no one crosses the line at 3:04:55.
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| Xavier Deltin Finish Video |
One interesting note is that Xavier had a goal of completing the marathon majors. He posts publicly on his results for nearly every race, but makes no mention of Mt St Michel and the race of his life.
The below was grabbed from his public Facebook photos (translated from French) He comments twice on the cost for Boston.
The next runner that was flagged is Philippe Fuhr. Below is a picture of the finish video. Philippe should have finished between runners 262 and 2030.
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| Philippe Fuhr finish video |
The difference between Philippe and the other runners is that it appears he actually ran the race.
His actual time shown in the video missed a BQ by 9 minutes. His official time was 5 minutes faster than the cutoff.
Here is a shot of Philippe finishing with the clock showing 4:02:48 just after he passes. His bib # is 487.
The last runner that was flagged was Philippe Derouin. His clock time is 3:52:02.
As with Guilhen, his splits mirror a runner. At this point, we do not believe the other runner is involved.
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| Philippe Derouin finish video |
Derouin is not seen at the finish. He was registered with bib # 3115.
It seems highly likely the results for these runners were added after the race.
Lastly, I decided to cross check the Boston entry list against the Mt St Michel entry list to see if there were any other runners that qualified for Boston at the race.
It was determined that 8 additional runners ran the 2015 Boston Marathon that had qualifying times at Mt St Michel. Of the 8, 3 more have no photos or no splits.
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| Laurent Martin finish video |
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| Sandrine Evennou finish video |
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| Raphael Laurent finish video |
In summary, there were a total of 12 runners that recorded BQ times at Mt St Michel that went on to run Boston in 2015. 6 of those runners do not appear on the course at all, and a 7th runner appears in the video 14 minutes after his credited time.
It would appear that there was a coordinated effort to obtain Boston Qualifications for this group of runners.
Google “Boston Marathon Travel Agency Europe” and you will come to sites offering services similar to this.
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| Sample screen shot – agency offering guaranteed Boston entries |
As an official travel partner of the Boston Marathon, BAA (Boston Athletic Association) we are pleased to offer GUARANTEED entries for the Boston Marathon.
How is this possible? Some agencies may legitimately procure charity bibs for runners that have not qualified. But there is the possibility that in some cases the entries may be obtained through other means. After coming across this case, there is another group of suspicious results that needs further investigation. See the below chart that plots finish times vs bib #s for all runners located a single country. The red stars represent those runners.
There are a disproportionate amount in the outlier area. I am hopeful to soon have information on the qualifying races they used to be able investigate more. As of now, I have been unable to find any qualifier for the outlying results.
I will provide an update if any additional information is available. If any reader has any additional thoughts or information, please email me at derek@marathoninvestigation.com.
What country?
This race was in France, I am not ready to disclose where the runners mentioned at the bottom of the article are from until I gather more information.
Could it be that the organizers of the Marathon De La Baie Du Mt St Michel were behind these cheaters or helped them in some way? What do they have to say about it? Andif hte results were fudged in soem way by the race, are you making the BAA aware of this? Perhaps the race should be banned in some way for a year or two – a slap on the wrist. (How many legit BQers from that event?) Have you posted this info on any euro running forums or euro RWonline websites?
The current organizers of the race are different than in 2014. I am working on trying to get this particular case some more attention.
5:22:17 for Monsieur Guilhen today. IDK if it's the same guy.
Yes, the RD of Marathon du Mont-st-Michel admitted he has accepted to make arrangements in the results list for some runners to please one of his friend who owns a travel agency for runners.
(today) http://spe15.fr/la-triche-au-mont-st-michel-pour-courir-a-boston/
Thank You!
Sorry to comment in such an old article. I ran Ottawa and did BQ-53secs. Then I got rejected from Boston 2015 because BAA only accepted BQ-62 secs.
From 2015 and 2016 rejections, it seems that it averages 30-31 runners per second. So it sufficed less that 280 cheaters to deny my entry.
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