Ultra-marathon runner Joasia Zakrzewski has been disqualified from a race she finished third in for using a car during the 50-mile competition and then accepting the third-place trophy. The 47-year-old runner traveled about 2.5 miles in the vehicle while participating in the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool race on April 7.
Zakrzewski told BBC Scotland that she got lost halfway through the race when her leg began to hurt. She was limping when she spotted a friend on the side of the course and, allegedly, the friend offered to drive her to the next checkpoint so she could tell officials she was pulling out of the race.
“When I got to the checkpoint I told them I was pulling out and that I had been in the car, and they said ‘you will hate yourself if you stop,’” Zakrzewski told BBC Scotland.
Instead of pulling out of the race, Zakrzewski resumed running and finished third. She was given a medal and trophy, and didn’t tell anyone at the finish line about the help she received from the car. She even posed for pictures after the race.
“I made a massive error accepting the trophy and should have handed it back,” Zakrzewski said.
Zakrzewski has set multiple running records, including the Scottish 24-hour record, the British 200k and the Scottish 100 miles record. She told BBC she wasn’t trying to purposefully cheat and regretted her mistake. After Zakrzewski was officially disqualified, Mel Sykes was named the third-place finisher (17th position overall) with a time of 7:32:58.
“I’m an idiot and want to apologize to Mel. It wasn’t malicious, it was miscommunication,” she told BBC. “I would never purposefully cheat and this was not a target race, but I don’t want to make excuses. Mel didn’t get the glory at the finish and I’m really sorry she didn’t get that.”
Zakrzewski, who is from Scotland, lives in Sydney, Australia, and flew in the night before the race. She blamed “feeling unwell and spaced out and not thinking clearly” on jet lag from the travel.
Wayne Drinkwater, the director of the GB Ultras race, told BBC that nobody on the event team was aware she had used a vehicle at any time of the race, nor that she was not running competitively, otherwise she would’ve been disqualified immediately.
“After the event, there was no attempt by Joasia to make us aware of what had happened and to give us an opportunity to correct the results or return the third place trophy during the course of the subsequent seven days,” Drinkwater said.
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