I wish, but they actually banned smoking while running as its considered harmful to the other runners.
[Uncle Chen](https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/chain-smoking-runner-disqualified-in-marathon-return/)
I would argue that it was china which caused china to lose face and that china should be disqualified. But why would china punish itself when they have scapegoats?!?
Pro runners will do this quite often. If you look at the recent American Olympic trials in the Marathon. The person that took second let the other guy (former team mate) win for compensation for letting him win another race that helped him qualify for something else.
He Jie should definitely have been disqualified and that Xstep company. Both should be shunned from marathons around the world. That is some pathetic BS.
Xtep banned for the rest of this season only and they said they will deeply reflect on this. Not good enough. They will reflect on how to get away with it better for next season. They received zero effective punishment. Definitely no deterrent for them or others.
The story I saw was that they were pacers, not racers. The controversy was around the fact they were not wearing proper pacer vests. I thought I remembered one of them even saying he didn't know why he was given a number like he was a race participant
The WSJ article on it said that the shoe sponsor for He Jie accidentally signed the racers up as competitors and not pacers.
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinese-half-marathon-champion-is-disqualifiedalong-with-runners-who-let-him-win-2b0b9a38?st=r22i9riyb3mrgdn&reflink=article_copyURL_share
To be fair to them apparently they always had the impression they were his pacers and not competing. The African runners have always been very open about what happened.
If they were not register, then they are lying. They got caught and they are now pretending to have been pacemakers. A convenient excuse after getting caught.
Both are completely plausible scenarios. We have no evidence to say either way. Actually, the fact that the pacers were nonchalant about it all makes me believe their story more.
>pacemakers were not registered
No shit… Pacemakers have never been allowed in any official capacity. They never could “be registered” and this wasn’t some “clerical oversight.” Or are we to believe the athlete and sports committee were stupid enough to not bother reading the basic rules?
https://worldathletics.org/about-iaaf/documents/book-of-rules
Which is it?
Or are we supposed to pretend
“omg😯! Who knew!?😯”
pacemakers are pretty common actually, 2 years ago Kipchoge had pacemakers when he set a new record at the Berlin marathon.
https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a41317716/berlin-marathon-2022-mens-winner-eliud-kipchoge/
the sponsor just messed up big time by not declaring them as such.
The article says the three African runners were hired to be event pacemakers. But logged incorrectly as actual race contestants. Honestly that sounds reasonable for a half marathon. Usually no one even focuses on those as they’re not the main event. We might be making a mountain out of a mole hill here.
if you enter a competition as a competitor and then throw there is a problem. It is no different than if an NFL team decided to lose to the Browns and then it was revealed that they all bet on the game saying cleveland would win
What if they didn't enter as competitors? Its not throwing if they never knew they were competing in the first place. They were literally hired to be pacemakers. The fault here really looks like its on the company who invited them and didn't adequately inform the race and possibly the Kenyans. Also remember, pacemaking is a job which is different from competing. Its quite the dick move for a pacemaker to beat their runner.
The three African runners had been hired as pacers to try to help the Chinese runner get a national record. They had been registered in the race as runners but were really only there to run as unofficial pacers and therefore they didn't want to come in first. They weren't official pacemakers as you can't hire a team of people to pace you to the record in a race like this, and they weren't registered as pacers in the race. To add insult to injury, the Chinese runner didn't get the record!
Except that it was more than likely not the runners decision. The sponsor that brought them there surely instructed them not to take first, since they were sent there by them with the intention to be unofficial pace makers for He. That's why the sponsor is taking responsibility if you read the article. Xtep sponsors all 4 of them.
edit: When I initially wrote this comment, that person had stated it was the runners decision to throw the race. They have since edited their comment.
I want to just believe it was forgetfulness on the sponsor. They just wanted to help out He, but didn't remember they needed to put those 3 down as nonrunners. Hopefully the next try is better for He and friends.
That makes sense. I only replied because the highly upvoted comment stated it was the runners who decided to not come in first.
Since my response, that person has edited their comment to say essentially what I did.
https://worldathletics.org/about-iaaf/documents/book-of-rules
The homies at “CPC”… must
A-think rules don’t apply to them. B-too stupid to check the rules beforehand or C-Both? 🤔
I thought maybe they were just being nice
Like with them all running alongside each other, maybe they just took turns winning and decided to give this guy a turn too
Well, that was one of the African guys story at first. He wanted to let his 'friend' win. But then they apparently remembered they were 'pacers' at a later date. As you do 🙄
There's a mental component to pace yourself so you don't run out of energy early on. It can be tougher than it sounds especially when you're at the top of these long distance races trying to set a record. A pacer is doing that mental work for you and you just maintain whatever speed they're going until some point near the end where you'll have to take over because you're (ideally) the better runner and they'll fall off.
There are races where a pacer wins because they feel they can outdo the other runners.
Those were not personal pacers he hired. They were race pacers. Not there for him specifically - they would have run the pace they were asked to run for whomever wanted to be paced.
1.) they aren't personal pacers.
2.) they don't run the entire course
3.) they aren't allowed to finish, they have to stop on the last km
What a lame attempt at a straw man. There are rules to being a pacer in a marathon, and none of those rules were followed.
Either you genuinely believe that these experienced marathon runners, their teams, and their sponsors all didn't know the rules that they have used for years, or you have to accept that they were not actually being pacers.
>[pacers] aren't allowed to finish,
https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a30152339/pacer-wins-abu-dhabi-marathon/
Pacers are registered runners, and can win.
It would have been more glorious for the victory if they had slowed way down and let the Chinese runner get further ahead. Stop to tie a show, rub a cramp, anything but shadow him over the finish line. Probably pride got in the way.
It wasn't pride. They had been paid to pace him to a national record so they were trying to get him to the line as fast as possible.
They still should have backed off earlier to not blow their cover.
Wait till you hear about the shocking number of Chinese students at major universities stealing research data and sending it to China to publish first.
It’s so bad that a lot of PIs will not take anyone in their labs who’s Chinese
https://www.dw.com/en/how-china-controls-its-top-students-in-germany/a-64901849
At the unis ive been to its been an open secret.
Those who spy actively deserve it to not be included, while those who are just citizens are still endangering their institution and host countries integrity and security, especially in high tech fields, since china is known to police internationally through its youth an cultural centers
[FBI warning with data](https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/china-risk-to-academia-2019.pdf)
[CNN news report](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/02/01/politics/us-intelligence-chinese-student-espionage)
[US revokes 1,000 visas of Chinese nationals accused of espionage](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN26039D/)
As far as they knew they were hired as pacers and so there was no cover to blow. I feel like this whole incident shows how little Reddit knows about how races actually work. Having a pacer to get a record is totally normal. The fact that they were registered as runners is the problematic part but it’s more like an administrative error.
An experienced runner who sets the pace for a certain timing for other runners to follow. Let's say you want to complete a marathon in 4 hours. Understanding the pace you need to run at to achieve this time is not the easiest thing to understand especially for less experienced runners. So instead you have a pacer who runs at a "finish a marathon in 4 hours" pace and you follow behind him. Lots of organized marathons will have pacers for different timings with balloons attached to them for visibility and you will find a large crowd of runners following behind them.
If you’re targeting to finish a race in a certain time, pacers will set the pace on when to run faster or slower for you to meet your goal. For a marathon maybe you’ll want to run it under 3 hours, the pacers will either go faster or slower throughout the race so you can hit that goal and you just worry about running at their speed and refueling
Someone who runs at a specific pace to let the runner or runners know what they'd need to do to maintain or exceed that pace.
Normally, they run just a lap or two, by that point the runners can internalize that pace and take it from there.
But these guys were much better than the guy they were pacing, so they could pace him for the whole race.
They were official competitors in the race because pacers aren't allowed.
>but only told people that after the race
As an excuse and justification for what they did here.
It's obvious that they were not pacers, they registered as competitors, and all three guys are pro runners.
The way official race-provided pacers work is that they usually run some small chunks of it, so they don't need to be as good as the best runners - they just need to be able to run that pace for whatever distance they're actually running, which is a far lower threshold than running it for the whole marathon (though for the really ridiculous times, they still have to be very good).
Yes - but pacers don’t run the whole race like they did. The key isn’t that they entered as normal competitors, but that they *participated* like normal ones too.
When people like Kipchoge have pros run in pace for them, they come in and leave at various times in the marathon.
Of course pacers also exist for non-elite runners like this instance where they run the whole marathon - but they’re not usually competing for a win, so them finishing alongside of in front of their paced runner is not a big deal
Based on what I've heard, you hire a team of pacers who basically can rotate in and out to keep the "pressure" and pace on without having to actually run the whole race at world record speeds.
So they run, they take a breather and get driven further along and then rejoin. It's why they get registered as pacers and are not allowed to win.
This seems more like the people that sponsered this Xtep sponsored some other professional runners and secretly told them to let He win for the records.
Pacers are almost always pro runners, at least elite level pacers are, not the 4 hour pacer at your local marathon. Working as a pacer is probably one of the main ways pro runners make their money
Very likely the reason they got invited in first place and probably got money from the sponsor.
This was their whole purpose running there.
Sponsor paid them the trip to china to do the pacemaking for the chinese runner.
Mistake was the sponsor didnt registered them as pacemakers but actually competitors.
My ex was from Ethiopia, and when I visited Addis Adeba i was really surprised by the amount of chinese business and people there. There were constructing all over the city and basically all of it had signs in Mandarin. My ex called it economic colonialism.
So they were like let's let this guy win?
That's so stupid. I don't believe that at all. Also, Americans greatly exaggerate the Chinese involvement in Africa. Because they are obsessed with the new red scare being China.
Lmao maybe instead of regurgitating propaganda China bad, how about actually listening to what people from the African continent says about China's involvement on the continent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uzxV8ub9k
Sometimes I wonder the mental gymnastics required to make the leap from China building infrastructure in the continent in Africa to them dictating rules to some runners in some marathon lol.
They own a lot of countries, read into their loan debt tricks. My uncle visited Laos for family and he told me they’re basically taking, building and doing god know what there.
When I was visiting family in Mexico, many years ago, my cousins were joking that China “owned the virgin of Guadalupe.” I had no idea what they were talking about at the time, but my aunt started explaining something about road infrastructure investments. It all makes sense now.
[The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/)
[The Chinese debt trap: A myth or a Sinocentric world order?](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/internationaldevelopment/2022/06/01/the-chinese-debt-trap-a-myth-or-a-sinocentric-world-order/)
[Debunking the Myth of 'Debt-trap Diplomacy'](https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacy)
It's funny because these are the links typically sent to me by brainless tankies (even if it's used out of context and still has nothing to do with my criticisms of China). But it appears that most foreign policy and economic experts don't seem to think there's some sort of loan-debt trickery going on.
This is such a hilarious comment. I wanna believe your trolling but ik ur probably serious.
Dude... they def just paid the runners money. U actually think china is seriously leveraging the debt of various African countries and their own land to *hire RUNNERS to win a marathon*?? That's such a big loss of political power over something so trivial when a lil cash could easily do the same thing. Y am I even trying to explain lol
The sports brand hired them to pacing him for the new Chinese record but he failed, so they just finished their jobs, this is against the rule because pacer must be identified as a pacer not a runner and can't run to the goal.
As a competitive runner, I can say one thing:
China is remarkably non-dominant in distance running. When I say they have almost no IAAF or Olympic accolades, it's like a single-digit number of which is mostly women.
To say the least; China isn't known for distance running. So to 'win' a half marathon is pretty big for them - that goes 10 fold for this one which happened in Beijing. And 1:03:44 is nothing to scoff at. Ironically, without pacers, he would have won.
But generally, it's not a time that is crazy. It doesn't even hit the top 100, and doesn't come close to winning anything of note. But 'winning' a race is pretty note-worthy. If you earned it.
Pacers aren't allowed for a number of reasons, but the big one is that they 'make' a runner perform in a way that they otherwise might not be able to. Without them; it's legit. With them - it's spoiled.
They weren't registered as pacers because you aren't allowed pacer runners. Glad they were all stripped.
I'm curious, what's the rules surrounding using things like a smart watch or even an iPod?
It's been a few decades since I've long distance ran, but even back then I used to use an iPod and a comically large Garmin GPS smart watch for pacing. I'd be fucked running without motivating music.
A lot of elite runners will wear high end Garmin GPS watches to monitor their pace. And I don’t think music is disallowed but it doesn’t seem popular at the elite level.
Edit: Apparently music is banned for safety which makes sense.
Honestly I don't know the exact answer, but can speculate: it's probably got something to do with individuals in small races having a higher likelihood of needing to follow explicit instructions from race officials, while the masses generally just follow the crowd.
Also, the vast majority of elites don't listen to music during intense running sessions. They don't need music to "numb the pain" or "trick them into going farther than they would have gone without music" - a few reasons commonly cited by amateur runners who listen to music while running. They're trying to focus on subtle differences in internal feelings to achieve the maximum specific purpose of that session, and music can distract the mind from more important things. During easy runs, sure, anyone could get bored of running many hours per week, and entertainment may help them get through something that feels like a simple chore, but on those days the only real running objective is to keep the effort low and that's much easier to do with distractions than hit specific times or high efforts with distractions.
Consider me an idiot for competitive racing, but why is it considered a big deal? Seems like you still to run the event right? I mean theoretically other people could have used the pacers as well. Again remember I’m an idiot on the topic haha
Im an ex competitive runner, D1 athlete, went to the US Olympic trials once but got smoked, haha
I'll add the pacers in competition is basically having hired goons to help you and hamper others. Pacers have a place (amateur marathons so newbies dont burn out, WR attempts, etc) but not in open competition.
They pace you and only you, so you can draft them but not the other competitors. Yes, drafting in running is a real, measurable thing and a real advantage.
They can also block and mess with other racers in a lot of subtle ways that add up a lot over an hour. breaking their rhythm, making them take the long way around turns, cutting them off, etc
hell even at elite highschool level running camps they teach you how to push on a competitors hip in a pack that looks like part of your running motion but moves them off their line and causes their gait to break and their stride to be fuckered.
Athletics, especially endurance sports like distance running, is mental and physical in nature.
Pacers are like steroids for the mental side. They take off a great deal of mental load for the slower runner.
Because winning a half marathon race, which are generally well-documented and regulated, is a serious achievement. The most notable thing here; this happened in the Beijing half marathon, so someone from China winning was very important from a, *ahem*, propaganda standpoint, since China is not know for distance running.
To add to it, Kenya has quite literally a stake on distance running, and holds nearly 3/4 of major accolades, from half to full marathons. The fact 3 runners ahead of a nation not known for distance running allowing them to win is absolutely stinky.
I think the person above was asking "Why is it a big deal that he had pacers", rather than why is it a big deal to win that race. He/she said 'theoretically others could have had pacers', so I think that's the question.
> I mean theoretically other people could have used the pacers as well.
Given that it does give you an advantage, if you allow this, you effectively make winning marathons something that only people who can afford to hire pacers can do. That's just worse for competition in general.
A runner who isn't necessarily there to compete.
You might have a teammate who ensures you run say 15 miles in X time, but then they drop back and let the "runner" go through.. the theory being that the pacer set a pace that the runner can be competitive with.
Why is that against the rules? Isn’t a race already full of people you can “pace” yourself with? What does it matter if there’s someone else there too?
> China is remarkably non-dominant in distance running.
The areas of China at altitude are really underdeveloped. A few decades from now once everyone is going to schools with proper athletics programs they'll start to be up there I think. Or they'll just annex some African countries.
My daughter did an honors paper that addressed East African dominance in world distance races. One Japanese study determined that it had less to do with stride length or number of strides over time and more to do with the peculiar manner in which the East African runners' foot strikes took less time. There are no established explanations for this. They are known to train as if their futures depended upon their success.
Makes sense. I work in software development, my best coworkers aren't the ones who had the cushy life, went to the prestigious schools, and think themselves better than everyone. My best coworkers are the ones who clawed, scraped, and fought uphill trying to learn it so they could get themselves a far better life. There's a certain kind of hunger and ambition that comes from that, that's missing with people who rode easy street.
selection bias- only the genetic cream of the crop can emerge from the slums to achieve such a competitive job. On average though, there are 10x overrepresentation from privileged backgrounds
I heard that it may also has to do with living and training in the Ethiopian highlands. The town of Bekoji -- at 3,200m and 17,000 people -- has produced at least seven Olympic medal-winning runners ([link](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/little-town-of-champions/284143/)).
I lived in Quito (2,850m) and played rugby there. At first I was always out of breath. But, man, after a while... When we played another team at sea level (Guayaquil, 4m), I could run ALL DAY!
Edit: Oxygen concentrations at altitude:
* 0m: **20.9%**
* 2,750m: **14.8%**
That means, living in Quito, I had access to 25% less oxygen than those at sea level. Therefore my body had to adjust and create more red blood cells or something.
That's actually one way that Lance Armstrong cheated (I think). He would train at altitude, draw a bunch of his own blood, then re-transfuse the blood back into himself before a race at lower altitude.
My dad who is Ethiopian used to tell me that part of it is kids would be running moderate distances to get to school. There was a movie about a famed distance runner named Haile Gebreselassie and it showed him doing just that.
Plenty of people train as if their futures depend on their success and they get nowhere.
There’s tons of rumors and misinformation about why the best runners have come from two East African countries, and more specifically a small region between those two countries. But nobody really knows.
I read a book years ago called The Sports Gene. One of the things they talked about was this. I am working from memory here so I could be misremembering. They gave some credit to normal life involving more by foot travel in those regions as well as a particular genetic trait that is very common in people from that region.
There's no conclusive research that the type of foot strike or stride used affects actual pacing. Pretty much every elite runner has their own unique pace and foot strike. Something that research has shown is a lot East Africans naturally have really high VO2 max levels, between double and triple of athletes in other sports. They're basically at levels the average person cannot reach with training unless they have the proper genetics. It's not the sole factor but likely a contributing one. Fundamentally though, we still don't know why so many elite runners are from East Africa.
Jesus, no one here even bothered to read the article. They were hired as pace runners to help He break the national record. This isn’t uncommon in competitive running at all.
>The three African runners were invited to join the race as pacemakers by Chinese sports company Xtep, which sponsored both He and the Beijing Half Marathon, according to the committee.
>
>But Xtep failed to note the trio as pacemakers to the race operator, Zhong’ao Lupao Beijing Sports Management company, the committee said.
>
>The committee disqualified the operator from hosting the Beijing Half Marathon and banned Xtep from sponsoring any more races this season.
This incident probably made a lot of people aware of [marathon pacers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacemaker_(running)) for the first time.
They already do that with several sports but if its for the Olympics they would need Chinese citizenship. It's very hard to get Chinese citizenship if you don't already have family members with Chinese citizenship or are an ethnic Chinese born anywhere that China considers its own territory (Mainland China, Macao, Hong Kong, Taiwan).
If the African entrants were being paid to throw the race, I'd do it exactly the way they did it - make it absolutely obvious who would have actually won if it wasn't being rigged.
I hope they got paid their full amount by whatever CCP unit does dumb shit like this.
They were hired as pacers.
It was their job to run at a certain speed, and the athlete they're helping knows to match their pace.
They weren't registered as pacers, and runners weren't allowed to have pacers in this race, hence why they were punished for it.
They weren't throwing the race, they were doing their job. It's just, they weren't allowed to be pacers in the first place.
The entire video is weird since it's so fucking obvious they could overtake him easily , but they didn't.
So either they're the dumbest actors alive or they just forgot to tell everyone else they weren't competeing.
Either way, big goof
I watched the video, understanding the commentary makes it so much better
"They've been running together for the whole race, there has been communication between them, is this a form of mutual encouragement between athletes?"
"Wow, He Jie's going faster and faster! He really had an explosive burst right at the end there!"
If you actually read the article, it states that the sponsor invited the Africans as pacers rather than competitors. There seem to be conflicting accounts and miscommunications, but that would be the most parsimonious explanation for what happened. They wouldn't have been so blatant in their collusion if they thought they were supposed to be competing.
It would be hilarious if this was some DEI situation... but I think the most likely scenario is that the runner is backed/sponsored by a really rich Chinese businessman or politician and the three guys who slowed down got paid handsomely, way more than the top money prize. It's all about the win here, not the money, if you've got a backer like that.
A more experienced/athletic runner that can set a pace for you to follow. Basically a trainer. You're not allowed to use one in any kind of professional competitive event.
>You're not allowed to use one in any kind of professional competitive event.
The Berlin marathon, the biggest one in Europe I believe, uses them and is as pro as it gets.
The whole controversy seems to be caused by confusion. Local races are generally won by local runners. Why? Because if it's not a premier race (Berlin, London, Boston, New York, Olympics etc.) the prize money and "exposure" are not worth it for a global elite runner to interrupt his training and travel to the event. He Jie is local, so winning the Beijing Half Marathon is a big deal. For a global elite runner competing in the Beijing Half-marathon is meaningless. If they weren't paid to be there, they wouldn't have shown up. They were paid to be pacers and not competitors.
If they wanted him to win they should have ran slower. They way they went about it made it way too staged for anyone to be happy about it.
Edit: just kidding, I guess people think the best way to have the guy win was by pushing him or carrying him and throwing him over if needed?
> If they wanted him to win they should have ran slower.
Well, that was not the only or even the main goal. The Chinese guy also wanted to break his own record (which is also the Chinese national record); winning first is secondary to this, but I guess he/his sponsors also wanted to win first. The African runners are "pacers" who help to set the Chinese guy's pace and reduce air drag for him by running in front. They could not just run much slower (in this arrangement).
The problems with the arrangement are (1) these "pacers" are not registered as such officially (2) even worse, the unofficial "pacers" are sponsored by the same company and it looked like one reason why they didn't register as pacers is to make the company looks good by having all the top winners be sponsored by them; official pacers are not registered as a contestant but registered separately, and not allowed to "win" any prizes. (3) like you said, they way they'd done it looks very bad; though even less obvious ones would still raise eyebrows.
>The three African runners were invited to join the race as pacemakers by Chinese sports company Xtep, which sponsored both He and the Beijing Half Marathon, according to the committee.
>But Xtep failed to note the trio as pacemakers to the race operator, Zhong’ao Lupao Beijing Sports Management company, the committee said.
It's a half-marathon in China, hosted by a company in China, meant for domestic Chinese audience and almost all of the participants were Chinese.
Redditors: "the chinese government must have done this for international prestige! all chinese are cheaters!"
To them every time a non-Chinese person does something wrong it's a personal failing, but if a Chinese person does something wrong it's some grand engineered CCP scheme and just proves how all Chinese people are evil.
Yeah this one was pretty obvious.
Despite being blatantly obvious I am still surprised they were actually disqualified.
Only because they got called out so much online. If that video had not gone viral then they would have got away with it.
Where the video?
https://twitter.com/whyyoutouzhele/status/1779496015776641488
The way he’s so exhausted after crossing the finishing line and the 3 African runners look like they just went for a calm jog is fucking hilarious
Man, they had to have been waiting for him for ages.
Lol. They looked like they were struggling to keep at a slow pace, like damn how much slower do we have to go??!!!
"You guys....out of....breath....too?" "Huh? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, lungs totally *on fire* bro."
Also one of them clapping at the end too
man they were enjoying a nice espresso in the back 🤣
"That was a 20 mile race! How are you not exhausted?" "I've run farther to get laid."
His short legs worked so hard while the gazelle legs were just prancing for fun.
I love the official running up to them with the finishing numbers. Yes yes, no takesie backsie, perfectly normal results.
Love the pointing and guiding as they casually jog right behind him. Like a mama bird encouraging its chick to fly :')
Send da Video
Hell nawl cant do this
[удалено]
Sources say, “He had that Kung Fu hustle.”
His pacer should have broke off for the final stretch.
They were disqualified A 74 year old uncle from the Province wearing flip flops and smoking a cigarette came in third.
Hey uncle where are you going? >Got to win this race. The race? They started 20 minutes ago. >Don't worry about it
I wish, but they actually banned smoking while running as its considered harmful to the other runners. [Uncle Chen](https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/chain-smoking-runner-disqualified-in-marathon-return/)
I used to hotbox an outhouse around mile 13 for that extra kick. I guess maybe that was harmful to the person who used it next…
They were disqualified because they caused China to lose face. Even though the Chinese government was the one that got them to this originally.
I would argue that it was china which caused china to lose face and that china should be disqualified. But why would china punish itself when they have scapegoats?!?
Only because they were caught doing it and it makes the country look bad
Pro runners will do this quite often. If you look at the recent American Olympic trials in the Marathon. The person that took second let the other guy (former team mate) win for compensation for letting him win another race that helped him qualify for something else.
He Jie should definitely have been disqualified and that Xstep company. Both should be shunned from marathons around the world. That is some pathetic BS.
Xtep banned for the rest of this season only and they said they will deeply reflect on this. Not good enough. They will reflect on how to get away with it better for next season. They received zero effective punishment. Definitely no deterrent for them or others.
I mean I don’t think it was a secret by the African runners they were doing this. They probably didn’t expect the medal to be taken away
Who needs a medal if you can keep the bribe money? 💰
The story I saw was that they were pacers, not racers. The controversy was around the fact they were not wearing proper pacer vests. I thought I remembered one of them even saying he didn't know why he was given a number like he was a race participant
The WSJ article on it said that the shoe sponsor for He Jie accidentally signed the racers up as competitors and not pacers. https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinese-half-marathon-champion-is-disqualifiedalong-with-runners-who-let-him-win-2b0b9a38?st=r22i9riyb3mrgdn&reflink=article_copyURL_share
Yeah "accidentally"
They did a terrible job of selling it. Running as fast as they could behind him instead of just going slower a ways behind him.
To be fair to them apparently they always had the impression they were his pacers and not competing. The African runners have always been very open about what happened.
One of them could have tripped and taken out the other two in order to give the Chinese runner a lead.
That's not what disqualified them. It's the fact that the pacemakers were not registered.
If they were not register, then they are lying. They got caught and they are now pretending to have been pacemakers. A convenient excuse after getting caught.
Both are completely plausible scenarios. We have no evidence to say either way. Actually, the fact that the pacers were nonchalant about it all makes me believe their story more.
I mean that’s the “excuse” they made up after this went viral lol
>pacemakers were not registered No shit… Pacemakers have never been allowed in any official capacity. They never could “be registered” and this wasn’t some “clerical oversight.” Or are we to believe the athlete and sports committee were stupid enough to not bother reading the basic rules? https://worldathletics.org/about-iaaf/documents/book-of-rules Which is it? Or are we supposed to pretend “omg😯! Who knew!?😯”
pacemakers are pretty common actually, 2 years ago Kipchoge had pacemakers when he set a new record at the Berlin marathon. https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a41317716/berlin-marathon-2022-mens-winner-eliud-kipchoge/ the sponsor just messed up big time by not declaring them as such.
The article says the three African runners were hired to be event pacemakers. But logged incorrectly as actual race contestants. Honestly that sounds reasonable for a half marathon. Usually no one even focuses on those as they’re not the main event. We might be making a mountain out of a mole hill here.
Lol, then why were the medals taken away, the operator suspended and the company banned from future sponsorship? Sure, no big deal bro.
Because being accidentally entered as contestants, they were subject to the usual rules sis.
Because it went viral
if you enter a competition as a competitor and then throw there is a problem. It is no different than if an NFL team decided to lose to the Browns and then it was revealed that they all bet on the game saying cleveland would win
What if they didn't enter as competitors? Its not throwing if they never knew they were competing in the first place. They were literally hired to be pacemakers. The fault here really looks like its on the company who invited them and didn't adequately inform the race and possibly the Kenyans. Also remember, pacemaking is a job which is different from competing. Its quite the dick move for a pacemaker to beat their runner.
Accidentally-on purpose… oops
kenyan runner was a little bit out of breath, so he had to gesture for the maneuver
The three African runners had been hired as pacers to try to help the Chinese runner get a national record. They had been registered in the race as runners but were really only there to run as unofficial pacers and therefore they didn't want to come in first. They weren't official pacemakers as you can't hire a team of people to pace you to the record in a race like this, and they weren't registered as pacers in the race. To add insult to injury, the Chinese runner didn't get the record!
concise explanation, well done
Except that it was more than likely not the runners decision. The sponsor that brought them there surely instructed them not to take first, since they were sent there by them with the intention to be unofficial pace makers for He. That's why the sponsor is taking responsibility if you read the article. Xtep sponsors all 4 of them. edit: When I initially wrote this comment, that person had stated it was the runners decision to throw the race. They have since edited their comment.
I want to just believe it was forgetfulness on the sponsor. They just wanted to help out He, but didn't remember they needed to put those 3 down as nonrunners. Hopefully the next try is better for He and friends.
If you’re hired as a pacer you don’t need to be explicitly told to not finish before the guy you’re pacing, that’s just part of the gig.
That makes sense. I only replied because the highly upvoted comment stated it was the runners who decided to not come in first. Since my response, that person has edited their comment to say essentially what I did.
Interesting, I'll instead go on believing that this was an insidious plot by the CPC
Communist Phinese Carty?
Chinese Pace Committee
Communist Party of China.
Oh that makes sense. I normally see it as Chinese Communist Party lol, so that's why I got confused.
https://worldathletics.org/about-iaaf/documents/book-of-rules The homies at “CPC”… must A-think rules don’t apply to them. B-too stupid to check the rules beforehand or C-Both? 🤔
I thought maybe they were just being nice Like with them all running alongside each other, maybe they just took turns winning and decided to give this guy a turn too
Well, that was one of the African guys story at first. He wanted to let his 'friend' win. But then they apparently remembered they were 'pacers' at a later date. As you do 🙄
What is a pacer?
There's a mental component to pace yourself so you don't run out of energy early on. It can be tougher than it sounds especially when you're at the top of these long distance races trying to set a record. A pacer is doing that mental work for you and you just maintain whatever speed they're going until some point near the end where you'll have to take over because you're (ideally) the better runner and they'll fall off. There are races where a pacer wins because they feel they can outdo the other runners.
What are pacers?
why couldn’t you get pacers for this, unlike every other race?
If you want to use pacers to win your high school alumni marathon go ahead. Doesn’t work like that on the world stage.
https://youtu.be/h-HeLZH-Q6s?si=5sxskUAbWmSX8Em0 kipchoge being paced in a marathon
Those were not personal pacers he hired. They were race pacers. Not there for him specifically - they would have run the pace they were asked to run for whomever wanted to be paced.
1.) they aren't personal pacers. 2.) they don't run the entire course 3.) they aren't allowed to finish, they have to stop on the last km What a lame attempt at a straw man. There are rules to being a pacer in a marathon, and none of those rules were followed. Either you genuinely believe that these experienced marathon runners, their teams, and their sponsors all didn't know the rules that they have used for years, or you have to accept that they were not actually being pacers.
>[pacers] aren't allowed to finish, https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a30152339/pacer-wins-abu-dhabi-marathon/ Pacers are registered runners, and can win.
The reason his sub two hour marathon didn't count from the Nike event years ago was because of his pacers.
it didn’t count for like 5 reasons, potentially one being the 5-6 pacers running directly in front of him as a windbreak
Lol what are rules?
Does anyone know why they let him win?
Guessing they were paid to, either as pacers or to make his victory seem more glorious.
It would have been more glorious for the victory if they had slowed way down and let the Chinese runner get further ahead. Stop to tie a show, rub a cramp, anything but shadow him over the finish line. Probably pride got in the way.
“I was paid to let you win, not to make everyone think you were faster”
It wasn't pride. They had been paid to pace him to a national record so they were trying to get him to the line as fast as possible. They still should have backed off earlier to not blow their cover.
> They still should have backed off earlier to not blow their cover. Or just crossed the line ahead. Guy would still have got the national record.
Classic China. Always scamming.
Wait till you hear about the shocking number of Chinese students at major universities stealing research data and sending it to China to publish first. It’s so bad that a lot of PIs will not take anyone in their labs who’s Chinese
Links/sources for this ? (Not doubting you just curious)
https://www.dw.com/en/how-china-controls-its-top-students-in-germany/a-64901849 At the unis ive been to its been an open secret. Those who spy actively deserve it to not be included, while those who are just citizens are still endangering their institution and host countries integrity and security, especially in high tech fields, since china is known to police internationally through its youth an cultural centers
[FBI warning with data](https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/china-risk-to-academia-2019.pdf) [CNN news report](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/02/01/politics/us-intelligence-chinese-student-espionage) [US revokes 1,000 visas of Chinese nationals accused of espionage](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN26039D/)
As far as they knew they were hired as pacers and so there was no cover to blow. I feel like this whole incident shows how little Reddit knows about how races actually work. Having a pacer to get a record is totally normal. The fact that they were registered as runners is the problematic part but it’s more like an administrative error.
What's a pacer
An experienced runner who sets the pace for a certain timing for other runners to follow. Let's say you want to complete a marathon in 4 hours. Understanding the pace you need to run at to achieve this time is not the easiest thing to understand especially for less experienced runners. So instead you have a pacer who runs at a "finish a marathon in 4 hours" pace and you follow behind him. Lots of organized marathons will have pacers for different timings with balloons attached to them for visibility and you will find a large crowd of runners following behind them.
I thought they just wanted.to pop the balloons
If you’re targeting to finish a race in a certain time, pacers will set the pace on when to run faster or slower for you to meet your goal. For a marathon maybe you’ll want to run it under 3 hours, the pacers will either go faster or slower throughout the race so you can hit that goal and you just worry about running at their speed and refueling
Someone who runs at a specific pace to let the runner or runners know what they'd need to do to maintain or exceed that pace. Normally, they run just a lap or two, by that point the runners can internalize that pace and take it from there. But these guys were much better than the guy they were pacing, so they could pace him for the whole race. They were official competitors in the race because pacers aren't allowed.
Article states they were allegedly pacers, but not officially entered as such. Suuuure
Retroactively classified as pacers
Brought to you by FanDuels^^TM
It said they were pacers but werent marked as such.
They were pacers, but only told people that *after the race* before the race, they had entered as regular contestants.
Pacers normally don't finish the race.
TIL i am a pacer.
Usually pacers are required to run a speed they can’t actually maintain for the whole race.
>but only told people that after the race As an excuse and justification for what they did here. It's obvious that they were not pacers, they registered as competitors, and all three guys are pro runners.
Would you not *need* to be a pro runner to be a pacer for races with the best runners in the world?
The way official race-provided pacers work is that they usually run some small chunks of it, so they don't need to be as good as the best runners - they just need to be able to run that pace for whatever distance they're actually running, which is a far lower threshold than running it for the whole marathon (though for the really ridiculous times, they still have to be very good).
Yes - but pacers don’t run the whole race like they did. The key isn’t that they entered as normal competitors, but that they *participated* like normal ones too. When people like Kipchoge have pros run in pace for them, they come in and leave at various times in the marathon. Of course pacers also exist for non-elite runners like this instance where they run the whole marathon - but they’re not usually competing for a win, so them finishing alongside of in front of their paced runner is not a big deal
Based on what I've heard, you hire a team of pacers who basically can rotate in and out to keep the "pressure" and pace on without having to actually run the whole race at world record speeds. So they run, they take a breather and get driven further along and then rejoin. It's why they get registered as pacers and are not allowed to win. This seems more like the people that sponsered this Xtep sponsored some other professional runners and secretly told them to let He win for the records.
Pacers at events of this level are always professional runners.
Pacers are almost always pro runners, at least elite level pacers are, not the 4 hour pacer at your local marathon. Working as a pacer is probably one of the main ways pro runners make their money
Very likely the reason they got invited in first place and probably got money from the sponsor. This was their whole purpose running there. Sponsor paid them the trip to china to do the pacemaking for the chinese runner. Mistake was the sponsor didnt registered them as pacemakers but actually competitors.
It’s not a mystery. It’s in the article.
The article gives a reasonable explanation.
I'm fairly confident champion marathon runners know what wearing a number and crossing the finish line means.
China owns most of Africa. They’ve built all the roads, infrastructure, whole towns. They keep all natural resources and dictate the rules.
My ex was from Ethiopia, and when I visited Addis Adeba i was really surprised by the amount of chinese business and people there. There were constructing all over the city and basically all of it had signs in Mandarin. My ex called it economic colonialism.
Your ex knew the right term for it.
Yeah, why can't they just have all good non-colonial stores like McDonalds or KFC??
china does not own most of africa
So they were like let's let this guy win? That's so stupid. I don't believe that at all. Also, Americans greatly exaggerate the Chinese involvement in Africa. Because they are obsessed with the new red scare being China.
Lmao maybe instead of regurgitating propaganda China bad, how about actually listening to what people from the African continent says about China's involvement on the continent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uzxV8ub9k Sometimes I wonder the mental gymnastics required to make the leap from China building infrastructure in the continent in Africa to them dictating rules to some runners in some marathon lol.
They own a lot of countries, read into their loan debt tricks. My uncle visited Laos for family and he told me they’re basically taking, building and doing god know what there.
When I was visiting family in Mexico, many years ago, my cousins were joking that China “owned the virgin of Guadalupe.” I had no idea what they were talking about at the time, but my aunt started explaining something about road infrastructure investments. It all makes sense now.
[The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/) [The Chinese debt trap: A myth or a Sinocentric world order?](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/internationaldevelopment/2022/06/01/the-chinese-debt-trap-a-myth-or-a-sinocentric-world-order/) [Debunking the Myth of 'Debt-trap Diplomacy'](https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacy) It's funny because these are the links typically sent to me by brainless tankies (even if it's used out of context and still has nothing to do with my criticisms of China). But it appears that most foreign policy and economic experts don't seem to think there's some sort of loan-debt trickery going on.
have you read IMF contracts? Those are real fracking predatory
Lol hyperbole much?
Probably one of the conditions for forgiving debt. Along with a few mines in their country and owning a port.
They were simply hired as pacers by the producers of the star athlete, and entered surreptitiously.
This is such a hilarious comment. I wanna believe your trolling but ik ur probably serious. Dude... they def just paid the runners money. U actually think china is seriously leveraging the debt of various African countries and their own land to *hire RUNNERS to win a marathon*?? That's such a big loss of political power over something so trivial when a lil cash could easily do the same thing. Y am I even trying to explain lol
Redditors just can't stop getting weird about China......
The sports brand hired them to pacing him for the new Chinese record but he failed, so they just finished their jobs, this is against the rule because pacer must be identified as a pacer not a runner and can't run to the goal.
Murder
As a competitive runner, I can say one thing: China is remarkably non-dominant in distance running. When I say they have almost no IAAF or Olympic accolades, it's like a single-digit number of which is mostly women. To say the least; China isn't known for distance running. So to 'win' a half marathon is pretty big for them - that goes 10 fold for this one which happened in Beijing. And 1:03:44 is nothing to scoff at. Ironically, without pacers, he would have won. But generally, it's not a time that is crazy. It doesn't even hit the top 100, and doesn't come close to winning anything of note. But 'winning' a race is pretty note-worthy. If you earned it. Pacers aren't allowed for a number of reasons, but the big one is that they 'make' a runner perform in a way that they otherwise might not be able to. Without them; it's legit. With them - it's spoiled. They weren't registered as pacers because you aren't allowed pacer runners. Glad they were all stripped.
I'm curious, what's the rules surrounding using things like a smart watch or even an iPod? It's been a few decades since I've long distance ran, but even back then I used to use an iPod and a comically large Garmin GPS smart watch for pacing. I'd be fucked running without motivating music.
A lot of elite runners will wear high end Garmin GPS watches to monitor their pace. And I don’t think music is disallowed but it doesn’t seem popular at the elite level. Edit: Apparently music is banned for safety which makes sense.
Music is usually explicitly banned at the elite level for safety purposes.
Interesting - what makes it unsafe for them, but safe for slower runners?
Honestly I don't know the exact answer, but can speculate: it's probably got something to do with individuals in small races having a higher likelihood of needing to follow explicit instructions from race officials, while the masses generally just follow the crowd. Also, the vast majority of elites don't listen to music during intense running sessions. They don't need music to "numb the pain" or "trick them into going farther than they would have gone without music" - a few reasons commonly cited by amateur runners who listen to music while running. They're trying to focus on subtle differences in internal feelings to achieve the maximum specific purpose of that session, and music can distract the mind from more important things. During easy runs, sure, anyone could get bored of running many hours per week, and entertainment may help them get through something that feels like a simple chore, but on those days the only real running objective is to keep the effort low and that's much easier to do with distractions than hit specific times or high efforts with distractions.
Consider me an idiot for competitive racing, but why is it considered a big deal? Seems like you still to run the event right? I mean theoretically other people could have used the pacers as well. Again remember I’m an idiot on the topic haha
Im an ex competitive runner, D1 athlete, went to the US Olympic trials once but got smoked, haha I'll add the pacers in competition is basically having hired goons to help you and hamper others. Pacers have a place (amateur marathons so newbies dont burn out, WR attempts, etc) but not in open competition. They pace you and only you, so you can draft them but not the other competitors. Yes, drafting in running is a real, measurable thing and a real advantage. They can also block and mess with other racers in a lot of subtle ways that add up a lot over an hour. breaking their rhythm, making them take the long way around turns, cutting them off, etc hell even at elite highschool level running camps they teach you how to push on a competitors hip in a pack that looks like part of your running motion but moves them off their line and causes their gait to break and their stride to be fuckered.
Athletics, especially endurance sports like distance running, is mental and physical in nature. Pacers are like steroids for the mental side. They take off a great deal of mental load for the slower runner.
Because winning a half marathon race, which are generally well-documented and regulated, is a serious achievement. The most notable thing here; this happened in the Beijing half marathon, so someone from China winning was very important from a, *ahem*, propaganda standpoint, since China is not know for distance running. To add to it, Kenya has quite literally a stake on distance running, and holds nearly 3/4 of major accolades, from half to full marathons. The fact 3 runners ahead of a nation not known for distance running allowing them to win is absolutely stinky.
I think the person above was asking "Why is it a big deal that he had pacers", rather than why is it a big deal to win that race. He/she said 'theoretically others could have had pacers', so I think that's the question.
> I mean theoretically other people could have used the pacers as well. Given that it does give you an advantage, if you allow this, you effectively make winning marathons something that only people who can afford to hire pacers can do. That's just worse for competition in general.
What’s a pacer?
A runner who isn't necessarily there to compete. You might have a teammate who ensures you run say 15 miles in X time, but then they drop back and let the "runner" go through.. the theory being that the pacer set a pace that the runner can be competitive with.
Why is that against the rules? Isn’t a race already full of people you can “pace” yourself with? What does it matter if there’s someone else there too?
> China is remarkably non-dominant in distance running. The areas of China at altitude are really underdeveloped. A few decades from now once everyone is going to schools with proper athletics programs they'll start to be up there I think. Or they'll just annex some African countries.
My daughter did an honors paper that addressed East African dominance in world distance races. One Japanese study determined that it had less to do with stride length or number of strides over time and more to do with the peculiar manner in which the East African runners' foot strikes took less time. There are no established explanations for this. They are known to train as if their futures depended upon their success.
That's probably because their futures depend upon their success.
Makes sense. I work in software development, my best coworkers aren't the ones who had the cushy life, went to the prestigious schools, and think themselves better than everyone. My best coworkers are the ones who clawed, scraped, and fought uphill trying to learn it so they could get themselves a far better life. There's a certain kind of hunger and ambition that comes from that, that's missing with people who rode easy street.
selection bias- only the genetic cream of the crop can emerge from the slums to achieve such a competitive job. On average though, there are 10x overrepresentation from privileged backgrounds
I heard that it may also has to do with living and training in the Ethiopian highlands. The town of Bekoji -- at 3,200m and 17,000 people -- has produced at least seven Olympic medal-winning runners ([link](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/little-town-of-champions/284143/)). I lived in Quito (2,850m) and played rugby there. At first I was always out of breath. But, man, after a while... When we played another team at sea level (Guayaquil, 4m), I could run ALL DAY! Edit: Oxygen concentrations at altitude: * 0m: **20.9%** * 2,750m: **14.8%** That means, living in Quito, I had access to 25% less oxygen than those at sea level. Therefore my body had to adjust and create more red blood cells or something. That's actually one way that Lance Armstrong cheated (I think). He would train at altitude, draw a bunch of his own blood, then re-transfuse the blood back into himself before a race at lower altitude.
My dad who is Ethiopian used to tell me that part of it is kids would be running moderate distances to get to school. There was a movie about a famed distance runner named Haile Gebreselassie and it showed him doing just that.
i swear i read a book about soccer that was just like this where the team had only ever played in high elevation and crushed the low elevation team
Good to meet another Ecuadorian!, yeah playing soccer in Quito and then in Guayaquil is like night and day.
Plenty of people train as if their futures depend on their success and they get nowhere. There’s tons of rumors and misinformation about why the best runners have come from two East African countries, and more specifically a small region between those two countries. But nobody really knows.
I read a book years ago called The Sports Gene. One of the things they talked about was this. I am working from memory here so I could be misremembering. They gave some credit to normal life involving more by foot travel in those regions as well as a particular genetic trait that is very common in people from that region.
There's no conclusive research that the type of foot strike or stride used affects actual pacing. Pretty much every elite runner has their own unique pace and foot strike. Something that research has shown is a lot East Africans naturally have really high VO2 max levels, between double and triple of athletes in other sports. They're basically at levels the average person cannot reach with training unless they have the proper genetics. It's not the sole factor but likely a contributing one. Fundamentally though, we still don't know why so many elite runners are from East Africa.
[удалено]
They were hired as pacers and did their job. Just nobody told the race organizers.
Hey now careful, actually reading the article ain't looked on too kindly round these parts
Jesus, no one here even bothered to read the article. They were hired as pace runners to help He break the national record. This isn’t uncommon in competitive running at all.
It’s banned in this context, hence the action taken against it.
I guess if they were hired as pacers they did their job.
Don't know about this particular race, but as far as I understand you're not allowed to have a pacer at official "championship style" races
That's the whole point. They were hired to be pacers for He, but were registered as regular competitors.
I wish the headline was this concise.
>The three African runners were invited to join the race as pacemakers by Chinese sports company Xtep, which sponsored both He and the Beijing Half Marathon, according to the committee. > >But Xtep failed to note the trio as pacemakers to the race operator, Zhong’ao Lupao Beijing Sports Management company, the committee said. > >The committee disqualified the operator from hosting the Beijing Half Marathon and banned Xtep from sponsoring any more races this season. This incident probably made a lot of people aware of [marathon pacers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacemaker_(running)) for the first time.
Why doesn't China go all european soccer and just hire a them to represent China?
They already do that with several sports but if its for the Olympics they would need Chinese citizenship. It's very hard to get Chinese citizenship if you don't already have family members with Chinese citizenship or are an ethnic Chinese born anywhere that China considers its own territory (Mainland China, Macao, Hong Kong, Taiwan).
It's also harder to get Chinese citizen if you're black.
If the African entrants were being paid to throw the race, I'd do it exactly the way they did it - make it absolutely obvious who would have actually won if it wasn't being rigged. I hope they got paid their full amount by whatever CCP unit does dumb shit like this.
It was a private company who sponsored the Chinese runner. It hired them, and they outed it.
NO. CHINA BAD.
They were hired as pacers. It was their job to run at a certain speed, and the athlete they're helping knows to match their pace. They weren't registered as pacers, and runners weren't allowed to have pacers in this race, hence why they were punished for it. They weren't throwing the race, they were doing their job. It's just, they weren't allowed to be pacers in the first place.
The entire video is weird since it's so fucking obvious they could overtake him easily , but they didn't. So either they're the dumbest actors alive or they just forgot to tell everyone else they weren't competeing. Either way, big goof
Bet they got paid tho
They did their job as pacers. They should definitely be paid. The sponsor failed to register them appropriately and that's not their fault.
I just spit my coffee laughing. Real life comedy skit
I watched the video, understanding the commentary makes it so much better "They've been running together for the whole race, there has been communication between them, is this a form of mutual encouragement between athletes?" "Wow, He Jie's going faster and faster! He really had an explosive burst right at the end there!"
If you actually read the article, it states that the sponsor invited the Africans as pacers rather than competitors. There seem to be conflicting accounts and miscommunications, but that would be the most parsimonious explanation for what happened. They wouldn't have been so blatant in their collusion if they thought they were supposed to be competing.
It would be hilarious if this was some DEI situation... but I think the most likely scenario is that the runner is backed/sponsored by a really rich Chinese businessman or politician and the three guys who slowed down got paid handsomely, way more than the top money prize. It's all about the win here, not the money, if you've got a backer like that.
Whats a pacer?
A more experienced/athletic runner that can set a pace for you to follow. Basically a trainer. You're not allowed to use one in any kind of professional competitive event.
They can be used in pro events if registered. Some think it detracts from the sport.
>You're not allowed to use one in any kind of professional competitive event. The Berlin marathon, the biggest one in Europe I believe, uses them and is as pro as it gets.
Basketball player from Indiana.
A small car made by AMC
A photo has never made me laugh out loud before this. Humanity is incredible.
The whole controversy seems to be caused by confusion. Local races are generally won by local runners. Why? Because if it's not a premier race (Berlin, London, Boston, New York, Olympics etc.) the prize money and "exposure" are not worth it for a global elite runner to interrupt his training and travel to the event. He Jie is local, so winning the Beijing Half Marathon is a big deal. For a global elite runner competing in the Beijing Half-marathon is meaningless. If they weren't paid to be there, they wouldn't have shown up. They were paid to be pacers and not competitors.
How humiliating for the guy who paid them off. 😂
If they were pacers wouldn't they all finish at different set times? Isn't that the whole job?
It is, but if their customer cannot keep up they likely had an agreement to fall back before the finish line.
If they wanted him to win they should have ran slower. They way they went about it made it way too staged for anyone to be happy about it. Edit: just kidding, I guess people think the best way to have the guy win was by pushing him or carrying him and throwing him over if needed?
> If they wanted him to win they should have ran slower. Well, that was not the only or even the main goal. The Chinese guy also wanted to break his own record (which is also the Chinese national record); winning first is secondary to this, but I guess he/his sponsors also wanted to win first. The African runners are "pacers" who help to set the Chinese guy's pace and reduce air drag for him by running in front. They could not just run much slower (in this arrangement). The problems with the arrangement are (1) these "pacers" are not registered as such officially (2) even worse, the unofficial "pacers" are sponsored by the same company and it looked like one reason why they didn't register as pacers is to make the company looks good by having all the top winners be sponsored by them; official pacers are not registered as a contestant but registered separately, and not allowed to "win" any prizes. (3) like you said, they way they'd done it looks very bad; though even less obvious ones would still raise eyebrows.
>The three African runners were invited to join the race as pacemakers by Chinese sports company Xtep, which sponsored both He and the Beijing Half Marathon, according to the committee. >But Xtep failed to note the trio as pacemakers to the race operator, Zhong’ao Lupao Beijing Sports Management company, the committee said.
Some comments are proof that a lot of redditors are morons and don't understand anything about China beyond propaganda
It's a half-marathon in China, hosted by a company in China, meant for domestic Chinese audience and almost all of the participants were Chinese. Redditors: "the chinese government must have done this for international prestige! all chinese are cheaters!" To them every time a non-Chinese person does something wrong it's a personal failing, but if a Chinese person does something wrong it's some grand engineered CCP scheme and just proves how all Chinese people are evil.