Berlin’s marathon crowds are used to seeing all kinds of improvised finishes, but few expected one to involve a bicycle.
A Chinese fitness influencer known as Abeeeer has issued a public apology after it emerged that she accepted a ride on a bicycle during the Berlin Marathon on September 27, then presented her finish as a personal best.
Her official time of 4:53:46 initially drew congratulations online. That goodwill evaporated once an Instagram account (named Official Marathon Time Integrity Unit) dedicated to policing race integrity, began circulating images from the course.
The photos showed Abeeeer riding on the back of a bicycle near the 38-kilometer mark.
When the account compared that location to her own split times, the numbers told their own story: her quickest five-kilometer segment of the entire race fell between the 35km and 40km markers, precisely where she had been photographed off her feet and on two wheels.
Chinese outlet Yangtse Evening Post reported that Abeeeer covered that stretch in just 30 minutes and 49 seconds, a full six minutes and two seconds faster than the five kilometers before it. This is a swing in pace that would be unusual for even an elite runner late in a marathon, let alone a recreational competitor nearing the 40km mark.
Her account of events shifted as scrutiny grew. According to reports, she first claimed she had started feeling unwell and climbed onto a friend’s bicycle with the intention of tracking down a race official so she could withdraw. According to that version, she changed her mind, got off the bike, returned to the exact spot where she had boarded it, and carried on running the rest of the route without skipping any ground.
That explanation didn’t hold up once she addressed the situation directly. In an apology posted on October 3, Abeeeer acknowledged that getting on the bicycle broke the race rules outright, and went further by admitting she had hidden what happened when she posted about her run afterward.
“This was extremely dishonest,” she wrote.
She added that feeling unwell during the race was not a justification for what she did, and said she accepted that her actions had shown a lack of respect for fair competition. The posts documenting her marathon run have since been taken down from her account.
The apology did not arrive in time to save one business relationship. On October 4, Brooks China announced it was ending its sponsorship arrangement with the influencer. The company also turned the scrutiny on itself, admitting it had not properly examined her participation and performance data before standing behind her result.
“An oversight on our part,” the brand said, confirming it has no intention of working with her again in the future.
