After a grueling hour, there was little to separate the 4 runners because the end line approached. However 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 opposite 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 at the moment are underneath 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 bunch for a lot of the race, the livestream confirmed, forward of the remainder of the pack, with the African runners sometimes pulling barely forward.
But it surely 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 Worldwide Working Competition, which organized the occasion, mentioned in a press release on Monday evening that it had launched an investigation into the matter in response to on-line commentators’ “questions in regards to the race’s outcomes,” with out naming the runners concerned. The organizers had created “a particular investigative group” to look into the matter, the assertion mentioned.
A spokeswoman for the Beijing Municipal Sports activities Bureau, the company that oversees sports activities within the metropolis, confirmed by way of cellphone 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 Put up that he was performing as a pacemaker — somebody who runs alongside different athletes to assist them keep their velocity however isn’t formally a competitor — for He. Mnangat didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark by his agent.
He, 25, is the 77th-ranked males’s marathoner globally, based on World Athletics. Final yr, he received the Asian Video games males’s marathon, and final month, he set a Chinese language nationwide file 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 operating has surged within the nation.
In 2018, 258 contributors had been penalized for dishonest within the Shenzhen Half Marathon, with organizers accusing them of carrying pretend bib numbers, hiring imposters and taking shortcuts, based on Chinese language state media.
And in 2019, feminine runners had been caught using bikes within the Xuzhou Worldwide Marathon and the Chengdu Ladies’s Half Marathon.
