China is to ban marathon cheats for life to clamp down on scandals that have dogged the fast-growing sport, which saw nearly 3 million participants across the country last year.
The Chinese Athletic Association late on Monday said in a statement that people who run under false names or cheat in other ways, such as replacing a runner with another person during the race or having more than one identifying chip, would be banned.
First-time offenders would receive a lifetime ban from the race in which they cheated, it said, adding that a second offense would result in a ban for life from all Chinese marathons.
The death of a runner in a half-marathon in southeastern Xiamen in December last year threw the spotlight on distance race cheating in the world’s most populous nation.
After the man, surnamed Wu, had a heart attack and died 4.5km from the finish line, it was discovered he was running on someone else’s behalf. Organizers later disqualified 30 of the 18,000 who had entered the race.
Wu’s family last month filed a 1.2 million yuan (US$173,969 at the current exchange rate) lawsuit against the person who enlisted him to run and race organizers, because they failed to notice Wu running with a different colored female bib, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.
The newspaper said an incentive to cheat was that high-school students had been told they could earn credits toward university entrance examinations if they finished in the top-100 places in the race.
Reasons to cheat in other events could be the lure of big prize money or the desire to show off on social media with a finisher’s certificate, despite having had someone else run the race, it added.
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