Did you hear the one about the social media influencer who hopped on the back carrier of a bike shortly before finishing last month’s Berlin Marathon? At the time it seemed like a bit of a joke, but some people are mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it any more.
Indeed, it’s fast turned into something of a marathon running scandal, after Yuanyuan Sun, a 30-year-old Chinese fitness influencer with over half a million social media followers, this week publicly apologised when several images emerged of her sitting on the back of a bike in the final 5km in Berlin.
Sun managed to finish in 4:53:46 – presumably hopping off the back of the bike by then – and thus breaking the five-hour barrier which appears to be some sort of running benchmark for social media acceptance. Her original post under the name Abeeeer claimed this was a personal best time, also showing her posing afterwards for photos with her Berlin finisher’s medal.
Suspicions were initially raised by the Official Marathon Time Integrity Unit (OMTIU), a sort of Instagram watchdog page set up in Australia last year for the purpose of “protecting the integrity of the marathon, upholding chip times, and exposing Strava inflation” – Strava being the fitness tracking app based entirely on the good faith of the runner.
After this revelation was picked up on by several international news outlets, including the BBC and The New York Times, it became clear it was no longer a simple laughing matter. On Wednesday, the Berlin Marathon organisers announced that Sun was officially disqualified, with her finishing time and place struck off the results list. Though no word yet on whether she’s handed back her finisher’s medal.
Compared to some other sporting scandals doing the rounds right now, namely Manchester City being found guilty of “sham payments” of more than £900 million between 2009 and 2018, this may appear a very minor misdemeanour. Especially given the only person Sun was really cheating here was herself.
Still, all this running outrage is a reminder that for all the different scales of cheating in sport, they almost all come back down to simple honesty being the best policy. Few people outside of the so-called Marathon Majors such as London, Berlin or this Sunday’s Chicago Marathon will be losing any sleep over the fear that some runners aren’t being entirely honest about their finishing times, although that isn’t making this any more acceptable.
For some runners, it’s partly about the growing “influence” of social media influencers when it comes to their participation in any sporting event. Particularly in marathon running, where starting places in events including the Dublin Marathon are now at such a premium. Sun’s little sojourn on the back of the bike has added to the impression they’re only in it to promote themselves.
She might well have got away with it too. She’d dropped her fastest 5km split of the marathon between 35km and 40km, covering that six minutes quicker than the previous segment, before “running” the last 2km, which only later caught the suspicion of OMTIU.
All this comes with a further cost beyond her disqualification. Sun has since posted an apology on the Chinese social media platform Rednote, which was shared by OMTIU, saying: “I won’t make any excuses for this behaviour. I was feeling physically unwell on the course, [but] that is absolutely not an excuse for breaking the rules. My attempt to take a shortcut was disrespectful to the fairness of the competition and the spirit of the marathon.”
Brooks Running, one of her main sponsors, also called this “an oversight on our part”, and added it has “immediately terminated its relationship with the influencer and publicly reaffirmed the brand’s commitment to integrity, fairness, and the spirit of running”.
As The New York Times also noted this week, there’s a long history of athletes who have attempted to use shortcuts or other illegal aids to improve their finishing times or position, including at the very front of the race. The most notorious of those was Rosie Ruiz, who faked her way to come 11th in the 1979 New York Marathon and to “win” the 1980 Boston Marathons; taking the subway to the finish at the former when passing herself off as an injured athlete, and by only running the final half mile at the latter.
Four years ago, the Dublin Marathon organisers also announced that a male runner had been disqualified and his finisher’s medal returned, after it emerged that he had likely travelled a significant portion of the 26-mile course on the Luas.
Suspicions were aroused there after the runner’s average 5km times had dramatically improved, at the beginning and at the end of the race, coinciding with Luas stops also along the route. If he’d run the entire race at that pace, he should have finished in just over two-and-a-half hours, which would have ranked him among the leading runners.
This week the Berlin organisers also announced that 94 runners have now been disqualified for cutting short last month’s marathon, saying: “In cases of proven fraud, we contact the individuals concerned directly and disqualify them. Any such disqualification can be seen in the official results lists. Following a thorough review of each individual case, we decide on appropriate measures and, where necessary, impose further sanctions.”
In their event summary, OMTIU also said Berlin had “more infringements than any other major marathon in recent history”, including, “early watch pauses, creative cycling commutes, false sub-three claims and the ongoing Strava PR sticker cover-up ...”
OMTIU added that “our work to crack down on time fabrication is just getting started ... more work is required”.
All of which should come as a clear warning to anyone who might somehow be contemplating taking a shortcut in the Dublin Marathon later this month, or in any big city marathon for that matter, because you are now being closely watched.
