Food Blogger Busted For Cheating In Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

[Satanica]

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/restau...ting-in-fort-lauderdale-half-marathon-9156729

Jane Seo blazed across the finish line at last weekend's Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon with a stellar time of 1 hour 21 minutes. The professional New York food blogger's blistering 6:15-per-mile pace earned her second place among the thousands who raced. Seo paraded around the finish line while grinning and gripping a gaudy medal.

But her pace, it turns out, was too good to be true. Seo has now been disqualified for cutting the course — a crime she confessed to only after a computer sleuth crushed her elaborate coverup.
[....]
She later posted a four-paragraph apology to her 34,400 Instagram followers.
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Suspicions arose almost immediately after Seo, who is 24 and writes regularly for the Huffington Post, crossed the finish line in the 13.1 half-marathon division Sunday. Race timer Josh Stern quickly noted that her timing chip logged unusually fast miles in the second half of the race, when runners often slow down rather than dramatically speed up. He confronted Seo, who persuaded race director Matt Lorraine to keep her listed as the number two finisher[....]

after the race, someone tipped off Derek Murphy, a business analyst by day who has become the world's best internet sleuth at busting cheating runners.

He began digging into Seo's time and soon came across a prime piece of evidence: a photo of her at the finish line that clearly showed her race-tracking Garmin watch. He enlarged the photo, which showed the watch matched her time of 1 hour 22 minutes but also showed she had covered only 11.65 miles — nearly two miles short of the full race.
[....]
Seo, who like many runners posts her activities on Strava.com, later in the day posted mile-by-mile records of her traversing the entire 13.1 miles, most of which run along Fort Lauderdale Beach. But Murphy discerned that the cadence numbers were more in line with a person on a bicycle rather than a runner.

Seo later admitted she'd gone back and biked the whole course to cover her tracks by GPS.

Murphy's site has been blowing up since exposing Seo's lies, and commenters on the web are excoriating Seo, a Harvard grad who regularly writes about food and culture. Her trip to South Florida was partially sponsored by Fort Lauderdale tourism site Sunny.org, Murphy said.
[....]
Murphy, based in Ohio, began his site two years ago to investigate claims of malpractice by runners aiming for the Holy Grail: attaining a qualifying time fast enough to be eligible for the Boston Marathon. He has even used Google Earth in one case to prove a runner’s “innocence” to claims of course-cutting.

He said he spoke to Seo Monday, who maintained her innocence, and traded emails with Stern and Lorraine. He broke his story of her cheating Tuesday.

“While I am glad that she eventually admitted to cutting the course and trying to cover her tracks, she only posted this after information was relayed to her regarding the extent of the evidence against her,” Murphy wrote on his site.
[....]

 

[lithiumgirl]

I love running ... but i die of boredom at the word marathon. Yep I do ... Boring!

 

[Brenni]

" Food Blogger " what the hell is that?
.. and the way I look at it ...
I'm assuming u have to eat :shrug: what do u eat ? Nothing that is wortha shit "blogging" about if u can run a god dam marathon You suck lady a cheater and a shitty food whatever I will only listen to a 289lb foodie :nana:

 

[Snoods]

This is hilarious! I love how this guy super sleuthed her Garmin watch. Some of those professional bloggers are unbearable. There is a site called GOMI (Get off my internet) that lambastes bloggers, it's pretty amusing.

 

[JackBurton]

What a stupid slut

 

[Muriel Schwenck]

http://www.staradvertiser.com/2016/04/10/nyt/athletes-expose-cheating-by-ironman-canada-winner/

Another interesting story of an Iron Man triathlon competitor who cheated. Ironically, her career specialty was counseling girls with body image problems. cheating your way to the winners pedestal is also an image problem.