By Citius Mag Staff
February 23, 2017
Yesterday, the internet was in an uproar randomly over a New York City food blogger by the name of Jane Seo, who was caught cheating in the Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon. The culprit was caught after marathoninvestigation.com laid out her lies in an extensive blog post. She apologized to her 34,400+ Instagram followers with a four-paragraph letter.
She posted her run on Strava, which was just further evidence against her. One of the funniest details of the whole debacle is that she biked the whole course to cover her tracks on her GPS watch. Sad! Cheats never win. The whole report can be read here and you can start your day with a laugh.
Before Strava and before there was a moonlighting marathoning investigator catching cheats, the world had Rosie Ruiz.
On April 21, in 1980, Ruiz, 26, crossed the finish line without even showing any signs of fatigue following a two hour and 30 minute run. Kathrine Switzer got her guard up when she approached Ruiz after the race and asked Ruiz’s what her intervals had been and then Ruiz replied, “What’s an interval?”
It took a little while to investigate but New York City Marathon officials discovered that she had taken the subway to cut their course.She even signed up after the deadline because she claimed she had a fatal brain tumor.
Her title was stripped eight days later and it was determined that she took the subway from Cambridge to Boston and hopped back on the course.
Ruiz was never criminally charged for her cheating ways. She did find herself in trouble with the law for other reasons. In 1982, she was charged with stealing $60,000 from the realty company and just a year later, she was arrested for selling two kilos of cocaine to an undercover detective, according to the Associated Press.
There’s a new documentary on the Boston Marathon coming out in the spring and I’d be curious to see if the director or producers managed to find a way to get her involved. She’s a 30 for 30 just waiting to be made.
Citius Mag Staff