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'Faux Farah' Jason Scotland-Williams faces probe by London Marathon bosses over claims he cheated his way to the finish

Mr Scotland-Williams ran the second half of the race faster than Olympic champion Mo Farah - prompting speculation he jumped over a barrier to slash 10 miles off the route

Tom Payne
Sunday 20 April 2014 13:03 BST
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The organisers of the London Marathon have launched an investigation into one runner accused of cutting 10 miles off the route by jumping over a barrier.

Jason Scotland-Williams, a 34 year-old model from West London, raised eyebrows after completing the second half of the race in less than half of the time it took him to run the first.

Whereas most runners would start to feel the burn around the mid-way point at Tower Bridge, he ran the latter stretches of the gruelling 26.2 mile jog quicker than Olympic champion Mo Farah.

His finish time – an impressive three hours and eight minutes – was more than twice as fast as his previous best, and propelled him into the top six per cent of athletes who took part in the race.

But Mr Scotland-Williams’ remarkable achievement has come under scrutiny from online forum users, who speculate that he leapt across a barrier at Tower Bridge and hid in the crowds before re-joining the race in its final stretches.

The official London Marathon website traces the progress of runners, giving estimates updates for every 5kms completed.

But Mr Scotland-William’s race log only contains times at the 25km, 30km and 35km markers – prompting claims he either cheated his way to the finish, or that his tracking chip failed.

One user of the Runners World forum said that Mr Scotland-Williams’ time for the second half is “nothing short of a miracle”.

And in a blog post that highlighted the super-fast time, Darryl Morris wrote: “I saw Jason just after Tower Bridge and he was absolutely smashing it. Just noted the barrier skip... that would make complete sense as to why I saw him there, looking so fresh!”

Another added: “He must have jumped over the barrier where the course doubles back, only explanation”.

A spokesman for the marathon told The Sun: “We have anti-cheating measures during the event, and then post-event when we analyse split times from points around the course.”

“Runners found to have cheated are removed from results and banned from future events”, they added.

Mr Scotland-Williams was running for deaf-blind charity Sense. A spokesman for the charity told MailOnline they would be “very disappointed” if the allegations of cheating turned out to be true.

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