Runner Disqualified After Claiming 2nd Place in Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon

> To call this "trivial" seems like maybe you have no interest or experience with marathons? It might be trivial to you,...

I never used the word trivial in my comment. You've successfully made a straw man and beat it to death :)

I hope you don't mind if I take your double mis-reading of my comment to make a broader point: I think your reply is an unintentional but apt example of the righteousness that can get whipped up in these types of stories.

Righteousness does some messed up stuff to our thought process. It filters things in a way to amplify the negativity of the behavior in question, crowding out nuance in the quest to reinforce belief.

It looks like you latched onto the use of the word "innocent" and started your reply, and each follow-on sentence in your reply is your thought process reinforcing this emotion, which is increasingly divorced from the original post's point (how we police behavior in the age of the internet).

Sorry to make a bit of an example of your post, but I recognize it because I've done the very same thing myself - it's something we're all susceptible to. I think the environment of internet comment threads supercharges this, as threads gain steam because they're public and can have many more participants dropping in to make a point or build on something someone else said. There's often no feedback loop to this bottom-up aggregate behavior, which can outsize the real world effects (the 'punishment') relative to the person's offense.

This site [1] has a good summary of the emotional chain of causation for why we feel this way:

* Intuition focuses the mind on a single strategy. An angry person can only see the reasons for anger.

* Anger is an unconscious choice by the system. The whole body responds to the emotion.

* Indignation also gains its power from the territorial instincts.

* The amygdala triggers the anger emotion.

* LTP (long term potentiation) makes the amygdala sensitive to imagined offence.

* Self righteous indignation permits anger without guilt.

Within the context we're talking about, this is really instructive. There are examples that describe each one of these points. And the sum of many people's anger without guilt can be fearsome.

For what its worth, I'm in full agreement with you - it bothers me too seeing people cheat, or stolen valor, or any of these types of reprehensible behaviors. What I hope for is a society that polices bad behavior by giving appropriate punishment - where we find the right response that prevents future activity rather than simply seeking to satisfy our emotional desire for revenge. I worry internet shame posts may be more the latter than the former and may have terrible unintended consequences.

[1] http://www.effective-mind-control.com/self-righteous-indigna... (I have no idea about the rest of this site and cannot vouch for all of it, but this one page was pretty darn good)

Anyway, that's nice that she owned up to it. Most of the cheaters don't. As a guy who's no doubt proved my running bonafides -- 3:06 marathon pr + there's a picture of me on the Western States 100 wikipedia page -- I always wonder why people get so angry about this kind of thing. I mean, sure, it's not cool to cheat, but this ain't the Olympics. Who gives a shit?

Nothing is getting "stolen," especially not if you weren't in the top 10 or whatever.

"what is ultimately a relatively trivial, presumably non-criminal misdeed."

While it's not criminal behavior, it must be discouraged and punished as it does tremendous damage to competitive sports and other sportsmen by discouraging them ("What's the point? Everyone cheats anyway") or forcing them cutting corners themselves to stay competitive (see recent doping scandal).

Wat?

Clearly her name is exposed in the Strava screenshot. Took me exactly 2mins to find significant details about her in the blog post (also: if not, you can easily reverse-image-search her runner photos).

It's great to have her disqualified from the race, she clearly cheated.

Putting the whole story on the internet without worrying about her identity being exposed. Why? Is this really what you deserve when you cheat at a half-marathon?

Long before the Internet showed up, what you describe was why you don't do such things. Is the punishment disproportionate to the crime? Yeah, could be. But whether it's pre-internet community gossip or the whole world knows, you don't such things because it could ruin your reputation if found out. Right or wrong, that's always been reality.

"Devastating consequences...professionally", as it should be. If she'll cheat in a race to make herself look good, what will she do in your business when real money is on the line? Cook your books? Lie about results (already has a track record for that one)? As long as she comes out looking good.

Its a common theme on HN to scoff at the trivial fines for companies caught cheating when the profits gained through cheating are much larger. In the case of this runner, I think a global calling-out is appropriate given that she'd sure accept the accolades were she not found out.

I would have more sympathy for your argument if this story was about some form of private cheating. But this was cheating on a public stage, one that she particularly sought out.

It can be really easy to make navigational errors in amateur races, especially with turnaround points. Usually there is no crowd lining the whole course, signage is bad, and the marshalling can be spotty.

Yes, this person is a bit narcissistic and a tad dishonest, but it might just have been easier to go along with the misunderstanding rather than fess up to messing up.

EDIT: OK, OK, "very dishonest" then. My point being that this stuff sometimes happens, people deal with it in different ways, and that witch-hunts can be just as damaging as the transgression itself. But yes, a lot of you (rightly) care about the integrity of amateur sportspeople who are also in the public sphere.

I guess if one subscribes to the race-as-life metaphor, where cheating in a race is tantamount to stealing from someone, and how one acts in a race is how one will act in the rest of life, I can see more reasons to get angry, but I think that viewing this as "rupturing the social contract" is a more extreme view, and is entering the area that Hugo was exploring with the Inspector Javert character. Yes, she cheated, yes it's wrong, and yes, she should face consequences, but how much mental energy should we expend in the pursuit and punishment of this cheating? I think I'm almost as disturbed by the obsession with the cheating as by the cheating itself.

Maybe this thinking is objectively wrong, but at least for me that's why, if forgiveness means not to ban her from all future events, my impulse is to forgive.

Also, 'relatively innocent' was meant in context of buying instagram followers, not in cheating.

> I'm more disturbed with the evident impulse to forgive. Is nothing important any more? Is character and honesty so worthless?

The thing I'm most disturbed by in these threads is how easily nuance is lost to the power of righteous indignation. It's like we're reading an entirely different set of comments.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk

There is nothing wrong with the methodology (using her own Garmin watch as conclusive evidence) but there is something to be said about the medium through which she was exposed (the Internet).

The problem is the Internet never forgets so even if she learns a hard lesson from her actions and chooses to become a changed person (ala becoming a coach/public speaker/etc), her name will still rank high on search engines for her cheating 10/30/X years from now.

EDIT: Not trying to excuse the terrible act of cheating she engaged in, but I think it is important to realize the role of the internet as a permanent record of everyone's (mis)deeds, regardless of whether it was a crime or not.

But I share the sense that something is weird here. Maybe it's just the section trying to cast doubt on the claim that she was feeling nauseous - there's a sentiment here that I find strange regardless of the bare facts.

First the judge tried to blame Teresa Brennan, "an old friend" from the USA. Turns out she was dead, and he knew it.

But then he claimed that he had lent his car on that day to a different Teresa Brennan, whom he claimed also lived in the USA, and who had also died.

When various TV shows have comically stupid plot twists I sometimes struggle with "suspension of disbelief". But this is one of those cases where truth is far stranger than fiction. You'd never believe someone in such a position of trust could be so stupid over something so petty.

It's an example of spin and was doubtless invented by a PR company for some politician caught with his pants down.

That sounds like a nice and easy way to weed out a lot of cheaters - every race has one or two randomly placed timing mats.

It's too easy to match pictures to a bib number and then simply look at the splits and wonder why someone ran a record breaking 10 minute 5k near the end after cruising along at a series of 25 minute 5k's. An 8 year old kid can investigate this stuff.

People are more likely to draw the moral line in the sand when the error in your favour goes so far as to bump a legitimate winner off the podium. Your scenario above regarding "[...] with some compliments now" seems more in line with "just a slightly better time in the middle of the pack."

I appreciate your willingness to be open and honest about how you'd handle a less egregious situation, but I doubt you'd go this far based on the relative positioning you've outlined.

> And while Ruiz never faced criminal consequences for faking her race finishes, she later ran afoul of the law for unrelated reasons. In 1982, she was charged with stealing $60,000 from the realty company she worked for, and in 1983 she was arrested for selling two kilos of cocaine to an undercover detective, per the AP.

EDIT On second thought, public shaming is consequence of something more important. If race officials would pay for reporting legitimate offences there wouldn't be a need to ask for donations. So author could keep those investigations hidden.

I mean, look at what the WSJ tried to do to PewDiePie, how the rest of the media piled on, and how people reacted.

What does the status of newspapers being public shamers have to do with it?

That is sort of the problem. There is super cheap that timex just does time, fitbit/garmin/polar that requires constant charging and is buggy and then there is the ultra highend garmin watches that are $500+ (the fenix series).

I just can't justify $500 (Garmin Fenix) as I only wear watches when I run. Looks like Amazon sells them refurbished though.

I know stereotyping/judging is innate from what I can tell/heard. Like an evolution/survival thing, is this person going to harm me. While you can judge somebody because they look sloppy/bad, I also envy that "I don't give a ----" mindset, me personally I'm like "Oh... excuse me... can I breathe this air... if it wouldn't trouble you?" I don't like that about myself. At the end of the day we're just animals on a rock.