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Marathon winner disqualified for not running whole race

Kendall Schler was the first woman to cross the finish line of the Go! St. Louis Marathon Sunday, April 12, 2015. She ran through the tape and took a photo with...
Kendall Schler

Kendall Schler was the first woman to cross the finish line of the Go! St. Louis Marathon Sunday, April 12, 2015. She ran through the tape and took a photo with Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee. But race officials were immediately suspicious.

According to KSDK, Schler was wearing her bib in the wrong place and did not have a bicycle escort at the end.

Marathon winner disqualified for not running whole race

Four minutes later, the real winner, Andrea Karl crossed the finish line at 2:54:28. Along side her were the bicycle escorts. KSDK said that race officials figured out what happened within about 20 minutes.

When verifying the true winner, race officials looked at the electronic tracking data along the course, but found that Schler’s bib number was not registered among the runners at any of the check-points, according to the report. Nobody had recalled seeing her in the race and none of the photographers had taken pictures of her.

A similar situation happened in 2014, when Schler finished the race in third. According to the report, race officials were unable to find tracking data from that race either.

It is believed that Schler slipped onto the course somewhere after the final check-point, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  Schler was disqualified from both the 2015 and 2014 races.

Schler claimed to have taken off the magnetic strips from her race bibs, which  in itself is violation of race rules, said marathon president Nancy Lieberman.

Marathon winner disqualified for not running whole race

Schler’s finishing times from both years qualified her for the Boston Marathon, and she had been invited to the race which was set  for Monday, April 20.  After Schler was disqualified, Lieberman contacted Boston Marathon race organizers and her invitation to run in the race was revoked.

Lieberman said plans were in the works to make it up to Karl by possibly recreating an event with her.

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