As you know every year there are many cheaters at the mexico city marathon (as reported by multiple sources). But now these folks are taking to IM COZ… there is a facebook page that is similar to marathon investigation but for mexican athletes. Most allegations are of people skipping most the run course.
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One of my friends was an age group winner from California suspected something fishy from a fellow podium mate and we sent the splits to sporstats to look into. I saw the splits and on one leg they looked legit on the “return leg” they looked like the person was out running Van Riel !!!
Lets see what plays out. From what I understand, on one leg there are parallel streets that one could dissappear to, but on the other leg, there is no where to slip out.
Pretty insane. I mean cheaters at least used to have the dignity to eat juiced up Mexican eggs and chicken and then workout a bunch. These guys aren’t even willing to put in the work!
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Did they show up on all of the checkpoints on the tracker?
In the case of the athlete whose bib number was forwarded yes, the athlete hit all timing mats both ways, the thing was in one way the times were faster than pros while this person was in a more “advanced age group” and in the other way times were “in line with age group peers”.
Race fees are way too expensive now to take a short cut. I’d be way more likely to do an additional lap on a 2 or 3 loop course 
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Is this the same person who allegedly had a moto ride?
I don’t know if we are talking about the same person. I don’t want to post the bib number until someone at Sportstats or Ironman says anything, but the bib number submitted for analysis hit all the timing wires, it was just faster than pros one way and “typicaly age group speed” the other way. It just looked too outlandish to be timing wire errors only on one side of the course.
Insane number of people that these people have busted - it´s hillarious reading
Wow, that FB page is indeed a hoot.
What I find really interesting is that after blatantly cheating (skipping half the bike and all the run), they cross the finish line in tears, raising their fists in the air in a victory dance to celebrate their accomplishment. Go figure.
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Are these people qualifying for Kona/Nice in their AGs before they get busted?
Also interested in what’s happening now? Are these being reported through appropriate channels?
It doesn’t look like, many of them are shown in the results as DNFs or DSQ, however, they would take a photo of them crossing the finish line for their own FB profile and then claim to be an IM finisher. Really pathetic.
That’s hilariously pathetic.
Replying in general. I raced in Coz and only remember passing timing mats at the turnarounds on the run. My splits seem to agree with that as well. But, they did have a few people marking down bib numbers at the turnaround, I assume to ensure all athletes did the required 3 laps.
Now cheating on the bike? I saw a lot of that. Including two guys that went over their bars because they crossed wheels while drafting off of each other.
So until I read this thread, I was actually considering racing Cozumel.
I hope the race director there has some pride in his race and wants to clean it up. It really looks bad to see an area that has the perception of being filled with corruption have a bunch of cheaters racing with no consequences.
Sure, this kind of thing can happen here and there in any country, but don’t these athletes realize they are giving their race and their country a bad image?
To be fair it didn’t seem any worse than any other 70.3 or 140.6 race I’ve done. I’d 100% go back and race in Cozumel.
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You normally see dozens of people cutting the course with hm splits that rival the pros? Maybe I’m just not paying attention then…
I wasn’t exactly paying attention, sort of had my own marathon to worry about. My point is, why worry about it? Is it taking money out of your pocket? Yeah maybe if you miss a slot to World’s because someone cheated, that sucks. It sucks, but it happens and it’s not a hill I’m willing to die on because I can’t control what other people do.
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Heh, ya that’s exactly what I’m looking at targeting. An higher place for a worlds slots. I’m not looking too closely, so I’m guessing none of these schlubs are top 5-6, but that’s about where I feel I can get.