Chinese Half-Marathon Champion Is Disqualified—Along With Runners Who Let Him Win

Rigged the US 20k champs prior to that as well, also documented and admitted during interview, same financial motive.

Pattern of behavior, but condoned actions as the USATF olympic golden boys.

To be honest, the "best effort" section of any rules is 100% garbage and enables the worst track/race official power trips.

As long as legalized gambling on track/road is not in place, get off the athlete's back. if the financial balance is tipped heavily in favor of the organizers and not in the favor of the athletes, then this is the result.

Also, did Rupp hold the field back strategically during the 2014 Boston marathon so Meb could win, as the legend goes, or was everyone not holding a US passport financially incentivized to finish 2nd or greater?

Grant Holloway pulled out of the US indoor final and straight up said it was to allow someone else to win. kudos to him, but clearly the athletes are getting hosed if it's not worth his time. I hope the bloated federations of pencil pushers and officials that take up resources eventually suffer the consequences.

The Chinese broadcasters were commenting on the four runners running together throughout the race and mentioned the amount of chatting and communication between the competitors (選手). There was no mention of the other three runners being pacers. If they were, why would the broadcaster point out that they all ran together? One of the broadcasters even dropped a "Go He Jie," giving the impression that the result of the race was in question. Nothing in that finish line vid gave the impression that the African runners were pacers. Granted, the broadcasters might have been confused.

Cyclists fix the finish of races all the time, and for money sometimes. You can actually watch them doing it and often arguing.

But that is accepted. It's genuinely fair enough if you accept draughting.

LOL This is contradictory. How can he say I let him win because I am his friend and also I let him win because I am a pacer.

Anyway this is the real sequence of events:

1. On Monday, Mnangat told the Post he let the Chinese athlete pass him “because he is my friend”.

2. Six hours later he realized he was in trouble and claimed he and three others were hired as pacemakers to help He break the Chinese half-marathon record

However, despite repeated requests, Mnangat has been unable to prove he
was hired as a pacer and was not taking part as a competitor.

On April 8, the marathon’s organiser released a list of the official
pacemakers, and Mnangat, Keter and Bikila were not among those named.

The website also showed that pacemakers would be given clothes that said
“Pacer” on the front and back from the sponsor Xtep, for which He is a
contracted spokesman.

The above information is from the South China Post

scmp.com

Beijing Half Marathon runner insists he was hired as pacer, agent denies any role

Kenya’s Willy Mnangat claims he was employed to help winner He Jie break Chinese record, but there is no record of his name among official pacers and agent Karen Lin angrily denies involvement.

Link:www.scmp.com/sport/china/article/32591...

Are we just going to play dumb and beat around the bush here? they were paid by someone to assist the Chinese runner. that someone was clearly not the official race organization in the official capacity of a race pacemaker for all runners.

So that runner, or his sponsor, paid them to pace him to a time and finish. throw all the other nonsense and ethical pontificating in the garbage for a second.

How is this any different than Assefa's paid personal pacemaker in Berlin when she set the world record and won the race. paid by adidas/assefa, not affiliated with the race or organizers at all, not registered to pace any other runners. Dropped off of Assefa at the Brandenburg gate on camera when he could/should have continued. Arguably could have run a 2:06 that day and affected the men's top 20.

I have no problem with either unless expressly forbidden in the rules. Try to forbid it in the rules and it's impossible to prove. as many others have pointed out, they would just have needed a better acting job had it been against the rules. Clayton Young could have "sprained his plantar" 200m from the Orlando finish if he wanted to, but who cares, it just becomes soccer acting at that point, so don't try to regulate it.

It's the deception that's the problem. If their bibs had said "pace" and it had been clear that they were pacers I don't think that anyone would've had a problem with it.

On the other hand, if you have runners who are set up to look like genuine competitors against someone, and it turns out they are actually pacers and have been told to let someone win, without declaring it or making it obvious/clear, that's totally different.

I have no problem with pacemakers in marathons, but I do have a problem with people pretending to be genuine competitors in a race when they are not.

* I'm not saying this was the case here - that the runners pretended to be pacemakers. I'm just saying re the concept as it's two different things. Maybe they weren't aware of what was going on. Obviously someone was behind it though. It needs looking into, it isn't a good thing at all.

Pacers are Bonafide competitors in a race and potentially could win. Agreements between organizers and pacers could have a clause that requires them not to finish. If pacers violate that agreement than most likely they won't get paid for pacing or be blacklisted from pacing for other events - BUT they would definitely be eligible for any prize money/awards associated with the win/place for that race.

You ignorami amaze me.

If race fixing is allowed then why have all the runners been investigated, been disqualified and have now lost their prize money.

And back in the 1990s there was a steeplechaser by the name of Bernard Barmasai who admitted to asking a team-mate to let him win. He lost his prize money as well as the jackpot. I dont understand if you are feigning ignorance or just plain ignorant

Exactly !

Back in 2003 when Paul Tergat set the marathon world record, one of his pacers, a fellow by the name of Sammy Korir almost won the race. He ended up only one second behind Tergat.

Besides that , I have seen many occasions where a pacer either won the race or tried to win the race.

Pacers can go on to win the race.

But if someone is purposely trying to lose the race (or running to aid someone else), that comes under the rules of sportsmanship and I think it should always be indicated by a PACE bib so everyone knows where everyone stands, including spectators. People don't want a situation where three runners are trying to wave someone past to win.

Honestly sounds like to me they were paid to be pacers and somehow there was some disconnect with letting the race organizers know. If they were really trying to "fix the race" then why on earth was one of them waving the Chinese guy to go ahead? Literally no effort was made to make the finish look like a legit race if that's what they were aiming for. I get China = bad but I have to think they would have done a better job at fixing the race if that's really what they were aiming for.

They're only mad because they got caught on tv and it went viral.

This is just to save face.

It really doesn't make a difference if their bibs say "Pacer" or not. Some athletes have their own pacers with non pace bibs. This has been going on for decades. Historically on the track Kenyan athletes would designate the most senior member to win and the others aided by pacing and positioning. There are no rules against this. The athlete who wins he race still has to run the distance/time. None of the runners should have been DQ'd, especially the Chinese athlete. Why should he be dependent on what another runner does in the race?

You can bet on these races. If they're fixed like this it's not fair. It's like say in boxing, what if someone throws the fight? That's not fair either. If someone enters with no intention of winning. If someone is a declared pacer it's a totally different concept.

Say if it was the Diamond League and someone just stopped right before the finish line and waved someone else on. Is that OK? There's a reason that they make it clear there.

To me there's a vast difference between someone being a legitimate, declared pacer - which is allowed in e.g. the Diamond League vs what happened in this race.

It's absolutely fine to have pacers - just make it clear. Do you really want races where spectators - anyone who turns up to watch and anyone watching on TV - has no idea what's going on, runners slowing down on purpose, dropping out right before the finish, waving people past - it not being a true race? People thinking that four people are racing to the finish then finding out that isn't the case at all? Whereas if they are declared as pacers and it's clear on their bibs and announcing/it's official then it's completely different, otherwise it's just a farce of a race.

What rule prohibits this? The only thing that was wrong was the optics. The Kenyans should have pulled off or slowed down earlier. And again, it doesn't make a difference if they are designated pacers. They are all Bonafide competitors.

There is no betting sanctioned by World Athletics, so get that out of your head. if betting occurs it is unsanctioned and setup by betting agencies legally (or illegally) operating in a jurisdiction with no guarantees to the patrons regarding adherence to rules or oversight.

Betting does not guide athletics and never should. pivot to "sportsmanship" guiding it and it's just as hokey. this was an open race and anyone has the ability to win or lose on their own accord. Just because it looks bad on camera against your personal moral compass doesn't mean they can't do it.

They were paid to assist this dude and not win the race. it doesnt matter by who. that wasn't against the rules, and the organizers just made up their disqualification to save some sort of public/sponsor embarrassment face, which is more embarrassing.

Cut through all the bullsh1t here and put an extreme hypothetical grey area example on the table:

-Josh Kerr pays an "employee" to be his training partner.

-That contract stipulates that the employee's compensation benefits depending on Kerr's success. that is, the employee makes more money the more successful Kerr is.

-Jakob Ingebrigtsen wakes up one day and decides to apply to be Kerr's training partner employee.

-In the final stretch of the olympic 1500m final, if Jakob let's up and allows Kerr to win because it's more financially lucrative for him, has either of them cheated? has either of them broken a rule? can anyone even attempting to argue that something is wrong prove that Jakob has done anything willfully, when the nature of human physiology is such that he can just say he ran out of gas.

I see a lot of posts on here about disqualification for lack of best effort in high-school and collegiate races. that is so far beyond stupid I can't even comprehend it. People have the right to chose to lose. if that upsets you, you might be a control freak.