The scandal continues: the first four runners are disqualified from the Beijing Half Marathon

The videos of the finish line raised several questions and caused a wave of indignation on Chinese social media, prompting organizers to launch an investigation at the beginning of the week.

Viral images show He Jie, 25 years old, a certain distance behind the Kenyans Robert Keter and Willy Mnangat and the Ethiopian Dejene Hailu at the time of reaching the finish line. 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.

Willy Mnangat later told BBC television that the three African runners were “hares”, that is, runners in charge of setting the pace, but their numbers did not indicate this.

The organizing committee indicated in a statement, cited by Chinese state television CCTV, that the three African runners were indeed acting as hares, but that they were not declared as such by one of the companies sponsoring the race, which was in charge of doing so. .

Therefore, the Chinese athlete and the three Africans have been “disqualified,” the organizers announced in that statement, published at the end of their investigation. Their trophies, medals and awards have also been “taken away,” they say.

The organizing committee says it feels “deeply guilty” for not having “detected and corrected” the problem in time. “We offer our most sincere apologies,” he says.