This guy appears to have become really good at hitting the mats at just the right time after learning from a couple dq’s and a ban based on impossible splits at CIM. Without the abundance of photos and video and people like Derek and folks on letsrun willing to comb through it in detail, matching splits with other runners, etc. he would be getting away with this now.
This guy appears to have become really good at hitting the mats at just the right time
Yeah, that took some planning. RD’s might need to start randomizing timing mat placement. I wonder if he used the timing mat placement from the previous year or if it’s in the race info or if he drove the course before the race.
Yep. I’ve been a lurker on all the epic cheater threads over the years: Kip Litton, Rossi, Robert Young, Dave Reading, Alex Viada, Parvaneh/Larry, and other minor ones. I usually start out willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but then turn when evidence accumulates.
Derek caught him dead to rights. I had been HIGHLY skeptical of his times all along wondering what PEDs the dude was taking, but in the end it turned out he was just another course cutter. Doesn’t matter the age, sex, professional or non-professional status; but all sport is chock full of cheaters looking for whatever measure of glory they need to try and fill the bottomless hole in their psyche.
I’m surprised that more cheating like this hasn’t happened - methodical planning, cross the mat whenever it is the right time, hop back in the car. I think it’s interesting that more participants don’t see something is up and say something.
Courses really do need a random split or two, camera, whatever, to help this issue. I think a random split would really do the trick. Maybe two back to back like 50 yards apart. That way you can’t use the “it must have missed me” excuse.
i think it also comes down to people not reporting strange/unusual circumstances. i watched two people swap a bib at raleigh 70.3 a few years ago. they were slow, so i chalked it up under “don’t really care” but i should have made some sort of report/inquiry. even just to establish a circumstance worth investigating should questions arise over that bib’s result.
GPS has hiccups and failures, but maybe start making timing chips with built in GPS. Then, if there’s ever a discrepancy…just pull up the GPS track.
That wouldn’t prevent chip/bib swaps, but you couldn’t cut at that point.
But not so often that a single person should have repeated missed mats. Of course that’s not the case with Mr. Meza, but in other high profile cheating cases it was one missed mat after another, or the same missed mat in the same race, different years.