interesting article about this in the New Yorker - dude cheated on a bunch of races (like 20 races or something) —
Marathon Man A Michigan dentist’s improbable transformation. by Mark Singer August 6, 2012 Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/06/120806fa_fact_singer#ixzz239tmDB5r
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/2012/08/06/120806fa_fact_singer#ixzz239uU7iw6