After a grueling hour, there was little to separate the 4 runners because the end line approached. However then, one prolonged his hand towards one other and gestured, as if waving him ahead. Seconds later, one other runner did the identical.
China’s He Jie then strode forward of the others, a recorded livestream of Sunday’s Beijing Half Marathon reveals. The opposite three runners — Willy Mnangat and Robert Keter from Kenya, and Dejene Hailu from Ethiopia — fell into place simply behind him, following from a brief distance as He claimed first place.
The outcomes of the half-marathon at the moment are beneath investigation by the race’s organizers, after footage of the end circulated on-line and led many to query whether or not the three African runners had intentionally slowed down.
He took first place with a time of 1 hour 3 minutes 44 seconds. Mnangat, Keter and Hailu tied for second place, one second later.
The 4 athletes ran in a gaggle for a lot of the race, the livestream confirmed, forward of the remainder of the pack, with the African runners often pulling barely forward.
However it was the ultimate moments of the race, when Mnangat and Keter each appeared to gesture to He to run in entrance of the others, that raised questions.
The Beijing Worldwide Operating Competition, which organized the occasion, stated in a assertion on Monday evening that it had launched an investigation into the matter in response to on-line commentators’ “questions in regards to the race’s outcomes,” with out naming the runners concerned. The organizers had created “a particular investigative workforce” to look into the matter, the assertion stated.
A spokeswoman for the Beijing Municipal Sports activities Bureau, the company that oversees sports activities within the metropolis, confirmed through telephone on Tuesday morning that it was additionally investigating the race.
He didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark through Xtep, a sportswear firm for which he’s the spokesman. Keter and Hailu couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
Mnangat advised the South China Morning Submit that he was appearing as a pacemaker — somebody who runs alongside different athletes to assist them preserve their velocity however will not be formally a competitor — for He. Mnangat didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark through his agent.
He, 25, is the 77th-ranked males’s marathoner globally, in accordance with World Athletics. Final yr, he gained the Asian Video games males’s marathon, and final month, he set a Chinese language nationwide document when he completed the Wuxi Marathon in 2:06:57.
This isn’t the primary time distance runners in China have confronted accusations of dishonest, as the recognition of lengthy distance operating has surged within the nation.
In 2018, 258 contributors had been penalized for dishonest within the Shenzhen Half Marathon, with organizers accusing them of carrying pretend bib numbers, hiring imposters and taking shortcuts, in accordance with Chinese language state media.
And in 2019, feminine runners had been caught driving bikes within the Xuzhou Worldwide Marathon and the Chengdu Girls’s Half Marathon.
