Last January, Marathon Investigation broke the news that Kelly Agnew was disqualified from The Across The Years 24 hour race. Agnew would complete a lap, go to a nearby port-a-potty, emerge about 7 minutes later and cross the timing mat again in order to register a lap that he did not run.
Since the initial disqualification, Kelly has been disqualified from a total of 21 races that took place from 2012 through 2017. He had finished in first place in many of these events.
The Most Egregious Cheating I’ve Seen
Kelly Agnew’s name comes up during The Marathon Investigation Podcast quite frequently. I have said that Kelly’s cheating is the most egregious and maybe the most brazen that I have come across. He got away with it for years.
Kelly was cheating at fixed time looped races. These races are run on relatively short loops, repeatedly for a set amount of time. Kelly typically competed in 24 hour races. With this format, runners will pass each other multiple times throughout the race. Kelly was face to face with the same people he was cheating out of wins. In many cases these people were his friends. But Kelly was able to continue to claim victory after victory.
Contrast this to when a runner cheats to secure a Boston Qualifying time, they don’t think of the person they may be bumping out. This person is a hypothetical entity to them. Unlike The Boston cheaters (whom I fight very hard to keep out of the race), Kelly knew those that he stole from, and he stole from them repeatedly.
Kelly’s calmly and repeatedly cheated these competitors out of their rightful victories.
Charged with Theft
The question is often asked, if someone will cheat at running what else will they cheat at?
Kelly is accused of stealing $48,905 from his employer by falsifying expenses through altering receipts. Kelly was formally charged with 10 felony counts of communications fraud, one felony count of pattern of unlawful activity and one felony count of theft.
This should not really be a surprise to anyone. In my opinion, anyone that pulled off cheating to this level for the period of time that Kelly did is capable of just about anything.
He had shown himself to be a bully, a cheat, and now he is an accused thief.
For me, this case illustrates why it is appropriate to report on cheating. It is right to ask the question, what else are they cheating at?
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Wow, I read the “bully” link and this guy’s blog about John Young and his reactions to John’s response to him about the blog may be the most disgusting thing he’s done. I raced with John at Ironman Maryland in 2016, which was apparently the first time an LP had completed an Iron-distance triathlon. I’m sure everyone’s said insensitive things in their life at one point or another, but to blog about John like that (and to double down once you’re called out for it) takes it to another level. Looks like his life choices are catching up to him now though…
Thanks Justin!
This is why particularly on Letsrun, any time there is a thread on cheating, people with this cheating mindset always post to attack those pointing out this behaviour. I suspect there are people skilled at cheating in all walks of life who are clever enough to avoid detection but get very upset when they read about people like them getting caught.
Complete sociopath.
Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
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