Athletics half marathon in Beijing
Chinese winner suspected of cheating because of unusual hand signal
Status: 15.04.2024 | Reading time: 2 minutes
The Chinese runner He Jie (m.) won the Beijing half marathon – but not everything was said to have gone well
Source: dpa/Ju Huanzong
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He Jie runs for a long time after a group of runners from Kenya and Ethiopia at the Beijing Half Marathon. Suddenly he seems to receive a signal and wins in the end. Many viewers are outraged. Authorities are investigating the strange victory.
After an outcry on the Internet, the authorities are taking a closer look at the victory of Chinese athlete He Jie in the half marathon in Beijing. “Those responsible are already involved,” the sports office in Beijing told the newspaper “Xinhuanghe” (New Yellow River) on Monday. The organizers said: “The circumstances are currently being verified and are being investigated and examined from several sides.”
The question is whether He’s victory was engineered in advance: Videos show him running after a three-man group with the Kenyans Willy Mnangat and Robert Keter as well as the Ethiopian Dejene Hailu as he crossed the finish line on Sunday. Shortly before the finish line, Mnangat waves the Chinese forward with his right hand. He then overtakes the trio and, according to official information, wins over the 21.1 kilometers with a time of 1:03:44 hours – one second faster than the three runners from Africa, who according to the data came in second at the same time.
According to several media reports, people then reported the incident to the citizen hotline 12345. Online, a user wrote on the Weibo platform about a “loss of face for Beijing”. According to the state-run Global Times newspaper, He said afterwards that he was satisfied with the run, which was good preparation for the Olympic Games in Paris. “I’ve never done a half marathon before, so I wanted to set a personal best this time,” he said. However, the international top times are well under an hour.
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He is one of the best marathon runners in China. In recent years he has twice improved the national record over the almost 42.2 kilometer distance. The 25-year-old won the marathon at the Asian Games last year.
Marathon fraud cases
Long-distance running has boomed in recent years, especially among China’s middle class; However, in the fight for the best times there are always cases of fraud and poor organization.
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In 2018, 258 runners were convicted of cheating at a half marathon in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, including many who took unauthorized shortcuts. The transferred participants were filmed by traffic cameras as they ran between trees to continue on another part of the route.
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In 2019, a woman was filmed suddenly riding a rental bike at the Xuzhou International Marathon in eastern China. She was asked by the race management to get off the bike immediately and then get back on again shortly afterwards.
