The organizers of the Beijing half marathon They opened an investigation after the controversial victory on Sunday of a Chinese athlete, He Jie, who appears to have benefited from the help of three other African runners, according to images of the competition.
In the videos of the race at the moment when they are about to reach the finish line, you can see He Jie25 years old, behind some distance from the Kenyans Robert Keter and Willy Mnangat and the Ethiopian Dejene Hailu. But those three athletes seem to slow down and the Chinese athlete overtakes them at the last moment, thus winning the half marathon with a distance of one second.
“We are investigating the facts” and, when the investigation is completed, “we will make the conclusions public,” an official from the Beijing municipal administration in charge of sports issues told AFP this Monday, who made these statements under anonymity.
The half marathon organizers also confirmed this investigation into He Jie's victory.
The way in which He Jie won this time in the Beijing half marathon generated a wave of criticism on social networks.
It is not the first time that a sporting competition in China has been marred by athlete cheating. In 2019, a Chinese participant in an international marathon in Xuzhou (east of the country) had been seen and recorded while she was cycling in that foot race.
At the Military Olympic Games that same year, a Chinese team was disqualified in the orienteering race for having benefited from the help of spectators and shortcuts that only they knew, according to the International Orienteering Federation (IOF).
Cameras also captured the moment in 2018 when runners took a shortcut through the trees in a half marathon in Shenzhen, southeastern China. Up to 258 athletes were found guilty of cheating in that competition.
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