Did 4200 Marathoners cheat to get the medal or did the timing company screw up?

Mexico City Marathon officials disqualified 4200 runners after an investigation revealed widespread cheating at their August 2017 race. There were 28,260 finishers. There were Facebook posts showing runners allegedly cheating by taking shortcuts, beginning the race along the course (officials are now saying most everyone crossed the starting line?) or even allegedly boarding trains (this was never confirmed). Marathon Investigation reported that most of the cheaters did not do so in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Rather, Derek Murphy wrote, they did it for the collectible medal. Or was this a timing company technical issue. "I think if it turns out to be a timing error and they disqualified a bunch of runners for an error on their end, that would be really bad for them," Murphy said. For the 2018 race the director says, “We are not handing over any medals at the end of the marathon, until we have thoroughly reviewed that [all runners] have completed the full race course,” De La Vega says. He believes that one of the major reasons for concern is runners' desire for completing the word "Mexico." Since 2013, the medals feature a different letter from the word. This year's event will complete the letter "O."

posted Saturday March 10th