Approximately 11,000 runners at this year's Mexico City Marathon have been disqualified after being found to have cut the course, according to Spanish newspaper Marca. Some runners allegedly used vehicles or public transport to skip ahead in the race.
11,000 runners were disqualified for cutting the course short. Not by taking a wrong turn, but by using vehicles or public transportation to cut the course short. That’s a third of the field! Wild.
So many opportunities for even well meaning people to get confused. One person cheats, the rest just follow the person in front of them, and boom, your whole event is wasted :\
I don't think there is even an effective way to stop cheating that widespread. The article says every year they dq thousands of people. Either they're getting a lot of false positives or they have to make registration more restrictive.
This is probably just the cynic in me, but I feel like a lot of those dq's won't care. They got their medal they can show off. That's probably all most of them care about.