There's Another Cheating Scandal, And We Promise It's Interesting

There's Another Cheating Scandal, And We Promise It's Interesting

Pat Huffman is at the center of one of the strangest and thorniest cheating scandals yet.

Nov 30, 2016 by Dennis Young
There's Another Cheating Scandal, And We Promise It's Interesting
From Kip Litton to the Manhattan Bandit, all of these cheating scandals can seem the same--a brazen man chronically cuts courses and denies it. But the ​Washington Post ​has a new one with a few fascinating twists.​

Fifty-two-year-old Pat Huffman ran all of her races for charity, including the May 2015 Marine Corps Half Marathon. She told the Post ​that she was raped and assaulted six years ago and has been raising money for charities that support victims of sexual assault and post-traumatic stress disorder before and since. All told, Huffman said that she'd raised $200,000 in the past 20 years. The Post​​'s ​Rick Maese basically confirmed this claim, as several charities told him that Huffman had raised thousands of dollars for them.​

The Marine Corps Half Marathon, though, kicked off a insane scandal: Huffman's time led the race directors to investigate her performance and eventually delete her from the results and ban her from all Marine Corps races (she had run 15 of them previously). Then, 5,000 people signed a petition protesting the ban; Huffman's Facebook account posted a statement that admitted to the cheating; and Huffman claimed she was hacked.

When Maese went to the race directors, they were ready for him. From the story:

"On a recent October afternoon, [Rick] Nealis was in his Quantico office preparing for the 41st running of the Marine Corps Marathon. He pulled a purple folder out of a filing cabinet, labeled 'Cheater.'"

Nealis said that Huffman was the only runner in the race who wasn't photographed for the middle seven miles of the course and didn't hit any timing mats between the three- and 12-mile marks. Additionally, that chip split at three miles had her on pace to run 2:11 for the half marathon; Huffman ended up finishing as the third woman in 1:34.

The Post ​did the groundwork of checking Huffman's previous bests and they're...inconclusive. In 2014, Huffman ran 1:40. But she also ran 2:06 on the same course a year before her 1:34. ​

For her part, Huffman is devastated by the cheating accusations and thoroughly denies them, telling Maese "This might be hard to understand, but it was like being raped all over again...I just can't explain how badly it hurts that someone would even conceive of me doing that...This affected everything I do, every ounce of my life. Being accused of this changed everything."

I recommend you read the whole story.