Cheating to Reach the Podium: Winning a Trophy the Questionable Way
Last September, a well-known and highly publicized British boxer named Tommy Fury told his followers on social media that he had managed to complete a particularly challenging triathlon in France without any special preparation. The 26-year-old boxer, also known as a reality television star in his country, even posted a photo of himself at the finish line on Instagram and boasted that it took him just 10 days of training to accomplish the feat. It later became clear that this was not the case, Fury was never documented finishing the 2-kilometer swim segment, and on the bike, his trail vanished after kilometer 48 out of 80. The criticism of the deceitful British boxer was brutal and merciless. “People like you disgust me,” British athlete Stuart Greg wrote to him. “People like you cheapen the hard work other people do. You cheated and your result should be erased.”
According to Moshe Peretz, a veteran and well-known runner who for the past two decades has organized and managed one of Israel’s most popular races, the Yarkon Park Half Marathon, which attracts hundreds of leading runners, cheating in mass-participation sporting events is more common than most people imagine. One case he remembers well from one of the recent races involved a fairly high-level runner who crossed the finish line with another runner’s bib number, belonging to someone who was not even present at the race, in his pocket. The timing devices, operated by a chip embedded in the back of the bib number, were activated and gave the absent runner an official finishing time identical to that of the runner. Almost every race has a camera documenting the finishers. A slightly more thorough check, which also included searching for finish-line photos of the “missing runner,” showed that this was a repeated case in other running events as well. There, too, suspiciously identical times were found for other runners, again without finish-line photos proving that the same runner had actually taken part in the race.
“In my view, there must be zero tolerance for athletes who cheat,” Peretz says. “I take this very seriously. Even though these are amateurs, I think their results should be erased and there should also be a way to suspend them and block their ability to register for races in Israel.” In one case, Peretz says he confronted a runner caught cheating about his actions, and the runner replied, “So what, I cheated in a race, so what?” According to several race organizers, one of the main motives for athletes to break the rules in mass-participation sports competitions is often a strong desire to win a trophy and climb onto the podium in one of the various age categories held in the race. “There are people for whom this drives them crazy,” Peretz says, “an addiction to trophies and a willingness to do anything to win one.”
A veteran figure in the field, who asked not to be named, claims that the obsession with trophies, people willing to do anything to get onto the podium, often increases with age. “I have seen more than once people in the older age categories who cheated and broke the rules,” he says. “Maybe they lose their shame, maybe they need more attention. In any case, there are a lot of issues with them.” According to Dovav Mazor, CEO of Real Timimg, a company that has been producing and timing running competitions in Israel for more than 20 years, “Today there are many cases of people running with other people’s bibs and chips, and in many cases you can’t even know about it until you get to the podium.” As an organizer, he has more than once encountered cases in which people handed their participant number and chip to someone who posted a much faster time than they were capable of. When such cases happen and the missing runner is called to the podium at the closing ceremony, Mazor says, no one shows up and the podium remains empty. The fake finishing time is not always erased, and sometimes it appears on websites that track race times.
“Over the years we have also seen cases where women gave bib numbers to fairly fast men who posted results that made no sense for them,” he says. “You go through the closest possible past results and compare them. It’s a pretty small community, and it is rare for someone to come out of nowhere, with nobody knowing them, and post very fast times.” If possible, race organizers correct the injustice before the finish ceremonies take place, but sometimes it is a losing battle from the start. In major races such as the Tel Aviv Marathon and the Jerusalem Marathon, the winners’ ceremonies for the various age categories are usually held several days after the event, an important window that allows for a more thorough analysis of the finishing data, examination of photos if needed, and scanning of split times from timing mats placed along the course.
During the preparation of this article and the conversations with race organizers, some hair-raising stories emerged, some of them amusing in retrospect, from the history of cheating in Israeli races: runners who started marathons with timing chips on their legs, formerly timing chips were tied to the shoelace, belonging to other people, a local marathon runner who competed abroad and was caught there emerging from the bushes near the finish line after taking a taxi, people who ran for others in order to receive benefits from their workplaces. Some admitted it and confessed. Others wrapped themselves in silence and denial. “In the end, you have to trust people’s integrity,” Mazor concludes, acknowledging that the resources and means to catch cheaters in races are fairly limited, “You want to believe people will run honestly. We are all amateurs, and this is our leisure sport.”
