After reviewing the 2015 Boston Marathon results, over 50 suspected cheaters were identified. Over 1400 were reviewed and 53 were deemed to have cheated in their qualifiers, or ran with someone else’s bib. This is just a small sampling of the total marathon field, but was the sampling deemed “most likely” to contain the largest percentage of cheaters.
Now that the marathon schedule has slowed down, I will slowly turn my focus to identifying those that have cheated to enter the 2016 marathon.
The process has been refined, and I feel that we have better prioritized the runners to review. For each runner, with input from other volunteers, we came up with a predicted finish time for Boston. We accounted for the conditions in Boston (Hot!) and also adjusted based on the difficulty of the qualifying marathon.
Starting with the largest differential between predicted and actual Boston finish times, I have reviewed approximately 200 runners to date. I have identified 20 runners that either cheated in their qualifier, or sold their bibs.
- 3 Bib mules (an imposter running in the qualifying race)
- 9 Course Cutters
- 7 Bib Swappers
- 1 Timing Issue (Runner granted early start, race never adjusted finish time)
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| Boston photo of ‘Pamela’ |
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| The real Pamela at her qualifier |
I am continuing to go through 2017 registrants to try to identify as many cheaters as possible before they get the chance to cross the starting line in Boston on April 17th.
If you are aware of anyone that has entered Boston 2016 or 2017 that did not legitimately earn their spot, please email me at results@marathoninvestigation.com. All tips will be kept confidential.
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After identifying the cheaters, does BAA take any action against them?
The baa only has the power to retract invitations for the current year's race. In some instances they will ban someone from further future participation if it comes out that they sold or gave away their bib.
They will actually disqualify runners from prior races only if the qualifying race issues a DQ.
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