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Julius Njogu attempted to trick his way into the money
bracket during the Standard Chartered Nairobi International
marathon on Sunday, but officials on the route stopped him at
the finish line, race director Ibrahim Hussein said.
Hussein said on Tuesday the 30-year-old Njogu and three others
emerged from a thicket where they were hiding six kilometers
from the finish line.
“They did it so foolishly because from where they joined the
runners, it was easy to pick them out because we had analyzed
the race and had many times identified the lead group," said
Hussein, a former three-time New York City and Honolulu Marathon
champion.
"There was not going to be a big difference among the top 13
lead runners and we knew them having followed them in the lead
car throughout the route."
Hussein said the other three athletes got mixed up in the
confusion and escaped. However, since they lacked chips on them
that the other athletes had for monitoring, they were also
likely to be tracked down.
As runner up in the race, Njogu would have won 650,000 shillings
($6,410.26).
"We trained our eyes on them until the finish line when this
Njogu guy purported to finish as runner up. He splashed water on
himself to appear to have sweated. But he was too fresh to cheat
anybody,” Hussein told Reuters.
Njogu told reporters on Sunday he trains in Naivasha, about 60km
west of Nairobi, and that he had no coach.
The race was won by Joshua Kipkorir who crossed in two hours
13:25 and earned 1.5 million shillings. Njogu ‘timed’ 2:14:10,
followed by Hillary Kiplimo in 2:14:18.
"I was running with them (athletes)," Njogu said when asked
whether he had run the whole race. He did not give a direct
answer as to whether he had run the entire course.
(Editing by George Obulutsa/Rex Gowar)
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