Joasia Zakrzewski finished third in the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool 50-mile race - but is thought to have travelled by car for 2.5 miles. The 47-year-old GP, from Dumfries, is understood to have been tracked on GPX mapping data covering a mile of the race in just one minute 40 seconds.
Wayne Drinkwater, the director of the GB Ultras race, said that after the ultramarathon he received information that a runner had gained an “unsporting, competitive advantage during a section of the event”.
Mr Drinkwater said a report of the disqualification had been submitted to the Trail Running Association, which provides the licence for the event and is an associate member of UK Athletics.
Third place in the race, which was held on 7 April, has now been awarded to Mel Sykes.
Previously
In February, at the Taipei Ultramarathon in Taiwan, Dr Zakrzewski won the 48-hour race outright - setting a world record across 255 miles (411.5 km). In 2020, aged 44, she won a 24-hour event in Australia with a distance of 236.561km. She has set a number of records including the Scottish 24-hour record, the British 200k and the Scottish 100 miles record.
Oh dear, all credibility now lost … apparently, she felt sick and tired, having flown from Australia …
On the one hand I feel sorry for her. She has obviously completed some amazing runs, and broke records without the need to cheat. A bit like Lance Armstrong, the discredited tour-de-France rider who could probably have still won the tour without the help of drugs.
To get anywhere near performing to her standards must have taken years of dedicated training and passion.
But on the other hand, she has put doubt in everyone’s mind, did she, or didn’t she? and wasted all her good work. It’s also disrespectful of other runners who have trained equally hard, and been denied their record attempts and race positions due to unfair competition.
I would like to hear her side of the story before making judgement though.
This looks like her side of the story. She forgot to tell the judges she wasn’t competing because she was so tired she forgot to say this was all for funsies. She mistakenly took the trophy and posed for pictures.
I’m feeling less sympathy now. The story is not plausible.
When she crossed the line she was given a medal and a third place wooden trophy and posed for pictures.
The runner, who had arrived from Australia the night before, said: “I made a massive error accepting the trophy and should have handed it back. I was tired and jetlagged and felt sick. I hold my hands up, I should have handed them back and not had pictures done but I was feeling unwell and spaced out and not thinking clearly.”
Nevertheless, she should have “thought clearly” sooner … the race was nearly a fortnight ago …
That’s got to be the most feeble excuse since “the dog ate my homework”
So she wants us to believe that knackered and jet lagged she got in the car for a bit. A car that just happened to keep driving in the direction of the winning line?
Then they convinced her that she’d hate herself if she didn’t finish the race, so she did, intending to explain at the end and not be part of the competition?
And then when she gets to the end , she’s so tired and confused she “forgets” about the explaining and dropping out part and accepts the trophy, photos and accolades?
And after, when she isn’t so knackered, she didn’t think the right thing to do would be to put the record straight?
At least not until she got caught bang to rights
Feeble, just accept you’ve been caught and take your licks
I don’t know the woman personally but during my years as an ultra runner I met quite a few, both male and female top class record breaking runners. Some were very approachable and down to earth, and others were elitist and deverish, you could say, even arrogant.
They expect everyone to know who they are, and get out of the way if you see them coming.
Because of their fame they think they can do what they like during a competition. I’m not saying any of them cheat, but during a forty mile race I was taking part in there was this runner. He had won this particular race for the last ten years, and he also was a member of the committee that organised the event. Anyway, on this particular year he gave in his tally with ten miles left to go and walked to the finish. He insisted that he should still be mentioned in the results and receive his medal so as to keep his unbroken record intact.
He had handed in his tally, and as such they assumed he had retired from the event and the remaining checkpoints packed up and left. He was refused his medal and he was classed as a DNF (did not finish) on the result sheet. He took umbridge and threw his toys out of the pram. That was the last time I ran in that race because after ten years I was getting too old and there was nobody to organise future races after the committee had a great bust up over the outcome.
Joasia is 47 and has done some remarkable things, but strikes me as having the same attitude as the previous example. She probably believed (wrongly) that she was runner royalty and could bend the rules to suit her. After all, they were privileged to have such a celebrity running in their event.
However…There is a saying amongst most runners…“You are only as good as your last run”
