Marathon Runner Cheats His Way to the Finish Line

Imagine catching a bus to finish a marathon? Of course you can’t, that would be ridiculous because that’s cheating! But that is precisely what one English runner did during a race this past weekend in Northern England.

The runner, a man named Rob Sloan managed to run for about 20 miles before deciding he had enough of the running part and hitched a ride on a bus. Apparently nobody told him that running a marathon was hard, so instead of toughing it out he took the easy road, literally.

Once off the bus, the genius proceeded to find a cozy tree to hide behind near the finish line until the top two runners passed him by. Then as cool as a cucumber, Sloan casually jogged back into the race finishing third overall.

Sloan must have forgotten that people actually watch marathons because several spectators saw the disgraced runner get on the bus and turned him in.

Once confronted with the alleged motorized short cut, Sloan dismissed the idea as “laughable” but quickly changed his tune once race organizers opened an investigation into the claims. Sloan had originally been awarded a third place medal but was subsequently stripped of the honor when his cheating ways were exposed.

For any athlete, running a marathon is the ultimate test of discipline and endurance. It’s 26.2 miles of sweat, pain and perseverance. It requires intense training in order to get your body into the top physical shape required for that type of prolonged running. Yet Sloan managed to make a mockery of it in the span of a few minutes. What must he have been thinking while he sat on that bus?

It’s insulting for a fellow runner to have such little respect for other racers. It would have been more honorable for Sloan to just drop-out of the race.

Was it that hard for him to admit he had failed?