After a grueling hour, there was little to separate the 4 runners because the end line approached. But then, one prolonged his hand towards one other and gestured, as if waving him ahead. Seconds later, one other runner did the identical.
He Jie of China then strode forward of the others, a recorded livestream of Sunday’s Beijing Half Marathon reveals. The different 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 are actually below 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 group for a lot of the race, the livestream confirmed, forward of the remainder of the pack, with the African runners often pulling barely forward.
But 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 International Running Festival, which organized the occasion, mentioned in a statement on Monday night time that it had launched an investigation into the matter in response to on-line commentators’ “questions about the race’s results,” with out naming the runners concerned. The organizers had created “a special investigative team” to look into the matter, the assertion mentioned.
A spokeswoman for the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau, the company that oversees sports activities in town, confirmed by way of telephone on Tuesday morning that it was additionally investigating the race.
He didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark by way of Xtep, a sportswear firm for which he’s the spokesman. Keter and Hailu couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
Mnangat instructed The South China Morning Post that he was appearing as a pacemaker — somebody who runs alongside different athletes to assist them keep their pace however isn’t formally a competitor — for He. Mnangat didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark by way of his agent.
He, 25, is the 77th-ranked males’s marathoner globally, based on World Athletics. Last yr, he received the Asian Games males’s marathon, and final month, he set a Chinese nationwide report 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 running has surged in the nation.
In 2018, 258 individuals had been penalized for dishonest in the Shenzhen Half Marathon, with organizers accusing them of carrying pretend bib numbers, hiring imposters and taking shortcuts, according to Chinese state media.
And in 2019, feminine runners had been caught driving bikes in the Xuzhou International Marathon and the Chengdu Women’s Half Marathon.
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