Meet the marathon runner who caught bus to finish third!
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A marathon runner has been stripped of his medal after he admitted catching a bus to clinch third place.
Rob Sloan, 31, became tired at the 20-mile mark of Sunday’s Kielder Marathon so hopped on the free spectators’ bus to the finish line.
Then just before the end of the race, he jumped off and emerged through a forest section of the course to re-join the pack and bag third place.
He ‘categorically denied’ not completing the 26.2 mile course telling organisers: ‘I ran the whole race’ in a statement on Tuesday.
But the runner, who just 24 hours earlier had won a 10k race, was spotted by a number of witnesses, and organisers were left with no alternative but to disqualify him after the event in Kielder, Northumberland.
Suspicions were raised after a number of runners reported being bemused by Sloan’s position after they failed to see him pass them during the race.
“Last night we confirmed that the athlete who was disqualified on Sunday, after initially placing third, has admitted that he failed to complete the whole course of 26.2 miles,” the Daily Mail quoted organisers of the Salomon Kielder Marathon as saying in a statement.
“Rob Sloan of Sunderland Harriers had apparently made the decision to withdraw from the race at approximately 20 miles due to fatigue and after returning to the Leaplish Park area he decided to run the closing section of the course and crossed the finish line in third place,” they added.
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