Amazing article about cheating in running races.

[Rain Man]

If you have a New Yorker subscription, read the marathon article in the August 6th issue. It's a pay site, but a description is below.

It's jaw-dropping. Absolutely jaw-dropping. The synopsis is that this Michigan dentist has apparently cheated on a large number of races, reporting times that are fast enough that he's often one of the top finishers. He has "run" several Boston Marathons, all of which are under suspicion, and many other marathons.

The article is chock full of interesting snippets. At one point, race directors started comparing notes and e-mailed the race director of a small Wyoming race that the guy supposedly won. That person e-mails back and says, "Nope, this guy is legitimate. He was running with the #2 guy the whole race."

The problem? There was no race. The evidence strongly suggests that the guy made up the entire race, built a website with results and times for other people with himself winning, and posed as the race director to return the e-mail. He made up an entire race. When confronted on it, he concocted some fantastical story about it that you have to read to believe.

The more sobering part of it is that he built a website the documented his "runs", and said he was doing a big effort to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis by running sub-3 hour marathons in 50 states. However, the Cystic Fibrosis Association has no record of getting gifts through his web site and has only received $20 from him personally. One wonders how much charity money he scammed.

Apparently the guy stopped "racing" in 2010 as he got exposed, but now some runners are starting to see evidence that he's using aliases to register for races. And despite being confronted by New Yorker Magazine in his home town, he still claims it's all a misunderstanding, and no one has yet figured out how he's accomplished the cheating.

This stuff fascinates me from a psychological perspective. What is it about this guy that gives him jollies by jumping into races and taking awards?

If you google, "Kip Litton" you see all sorts of interesting links by runners, and the centerpiece is this thread on letsrun.com: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_re...thread=3863010. These people have been going all Midnight Vulture on the guy for 2+ years now, trying to catch him and figure out what he's doing. Apparently he'll end up in different clothing at the end of races, and he hits the timing chips during the races but is never in any photographs other than the start and the finish. One person found a shot at Mile 18 (Boston Marathon, I think) that seems to show him walking near the runners on the edge of the timing mat, wearing non-running clothing.

Here's the New Yorker's article synopsis:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...fa_fact_singer

by Mark Singer
AUGUST 6, 2012

Subscribers can read this article on our iPad app or in our online archive. (Others can pay for access.)

PRINTE-MAILSINGLE PAGE
RELATED LINKS
Audio: Mark Singer on Kip Litton.
KEYWORDS
Kip Litton; Marathons; Dentists; Fraud; Cheating; Sports; Kyle Strode
ABSTRACT: A REPORTER AT LARGE about Kip Litton, a Michigan dentist who has been accused of repeatedly cheating in marathons and other distance-running events.

In July, 2010, Kyle Strode, a forty-six-year-old from Helena, Montana, ran the Missoula Marathon. He placed fourth out of thirteen hundred and twenty-two finishers, and won the masters division, for entrants forty and older. The second masters runner to cross the finish line, Mike Telling, from Dillon, Montana, trailed Strode by nearly four minutes. At the awards ceremony, however, they learned that Telling had actually placed third. The official runner-up was Kip Litton, age forty-eight, of Clarkston, Michigan.

Litton, who had been at the back of the pack when the race started, began his run two minutes after the gun was fired. He had apparently made up for lost time. Several days after the marathon, Strode visited a Web site that displayed photographs of runners along the Missoula route. Most participants appeared in several shots, each of which indicated, down to the second, when it was snapped.

Strode noticed something curious: although there were four images of Litton taken at or near the finish line, and he’d posted a half-marathon split time, Strode couldn’t locate him anywhere in the preceding twenty-six miles.

During the previous decade, Litton had run in more than a hundred races, including twenty-five marathons. His time in 2003 Jacksonville marathon, in Richmond, Virginia, qualified him for the Boston Marathon, the following April, where he covered the course in 3:25:06.

On July 24, 2010, Strode received an unexpected inquiry from Jennifer Straughan, the Missoula race director, who asked him to look at a photograph of a runner wearing bib No. 759. It was Litton. “There is some question as to whether he was seen along the course,” Straughan wrote. “He finished in a time similar to you so theoretically you would have noticed him.”

Strode kept investigating. At the Providence Marathon, in Rhode Island, where Litton had finished first in his age group, photographs showed him wearing shoes and shorts at the end of the course that were different from those he was wearing at the beginning. In the Delaware Marathon, Litton had finished first in his age group.

After being prompted by Strode, the race’s director, Wayne Kursh, found that, among the finishers, Litton alone had failed to register split times. Kursh had a blog, and on August 6, 2010, he posted a blind item about Litton. Kursh wrote in a follow-up that he had been exchanging concerns with other race directors, adding, “I smell a rat.”

Discusses discrepancies and irregularities from other races in which Litton participated. Tells about the West Wyoming Marathon, which Litton had fabricated, including false identities and times for participants.

Writer arranges to meet Litton at the 2012 Boston Marathon, but Litton does not show up. Litton finally agrees to be interviewed at a restaurant near his home. Litton acknowledged that he had been disqualified from several races, but only for unintentional infractions. He conceded only to having “been careless, not paying attention.” When it came to specific disqualifications, he offered deflection, not explanation.



Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...#ixzz22tb6wd4X

[MagicHef]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19801...-all-time.html

[tooge]

dont have time to read it. I'm running in the all world dentist championship in a few minutes.

[Graystoke]

Could you run that by me one more time?

[whoman69]

Rosey Riuz. Its all too easy to cheat in one of these things.

Originally Posted by tooge

dont have time to read it. I'm running in the all world dentist championship in a few minutes.

Your wife said you're the fastest ever.

[sedated]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

After being prompted by Strode, the race’s director, Wayne Kursh, found that, among the finishers, Litton alone had failed to register split times.

I hate sentences like this.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by sedated

I hate sentences like this.

Can you, sedated, tell me why, among all those sentences, you hate sentences like this?

[HemiEd]

You subscribe to the New Yorker?

[Saulbadguy]

Did you know it's illegal to shoot your opponent in a foot race?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

You subscribe to the New Yorker?

No, but I know people who do. It's all about who you know.

[Contrarian]

Running sucks! You'll get there eventually if you walk. But then walking sucks so I drive.

[Kidd Lex]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Can you, sedated, tell me why, among all those sentences, you hate sentences like this?

[cdcox]

Maybe there is a market for foot race simulations.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Maybe there is a market for foot race simulations.

I have to believe that's true.