HONG KONG - The Beijing authorities are investigating the April 14 Beijing half-marathon after footage shared online showed three African runners appearing to slow down near the finish line to allow China’s He Jie to overtake them and win.
The home runner won in a time of 1hr 3min 44sec, a second ahead of Ethiopian Dejene Hailu Bikila and Kenyans Robert Keter and Willy Mnangat, who all tied for the second place.
Videos, which Reuters was attempting to verify, showed the three African runners waving He, who was slightly behind them, in front and gesturing towards the finish line. All four had run together for the entire race of just over 20.9km.
He is a member of China’s marathon team and national marathon record holder. He is also the 2023 Asian Games marathon champion.
The event’s organiser – the Beijing Sports Competition Management and International Exchange Center – referred a Reuters enquiry to the half-marathon’s organising committee.
The Beijing Sports Bureau, the municipal body in charge of sports, told AFP: “We are investigating and will announce the results to the public once they are available.”
The state-controlled Global Times newspaper said He’s performance “drew scepticism as the three African runners seem to deliberately slow down for He to catch up”.
But many comments on social media were scathing, calling the race “embarrassing” or a “performance”.
“This will certainly be the most embarrassing championship in He Jie’s career,” one wrote, before adding: “With such a major organiser and such a well-known event, this really pushes sportsmanship to the ground in shame.”
Distance running is increasingly popular in China but races have a chequered history of cheating and poor organisation.
In Shenzhen’s 2018 half-marathon, 258 participants were caught cheating. Most had taken shortcuts while some wore fake bibs and others were imposters.
In 2019, a woman was filmed riding a green rental bike in the Xuzhou International Marathon in eastern China.
She was ordered by race officials to dismount from the bike, only to get back on again afterwards. REUTERS, AFP
