Ultra-marathon runner banned for a year after using car in race
A leading ultra-marathon runner who used a car during a 50-mile race and then accepted a trophy for third place has been banned from competing for 12 months by a UK athletics disciplinary body.
Joasia Zakrzewski admitted to using a car during the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool race on April 7 but claimed she only did so after telling marshals she was injured and no longer competing.
Data from the tracking system at the event revealed that Zakrzewski had gotten a lift for about 2.5 miles of the race.
The 47-year-old long-distance runner was stripped of her third-place title even though she insists she informed officials that she had finished the race “in a non-competitive way.”
The Independent Disciplinary Panel of UK Athletics disagreed with her portrayal of the situation when deciding to ban her for the year.
“The claimant had collected the trophy at the end of the race, something which she should have not done if she was completing the race on a non-competitive basis,” the panel said.
“She also did not seek to return the trophy in the week following the race.”
The runner had blamed her misjudgment in accepting the trophy on the fact that she had flown in the night before from Australia and was “tired and jetlagged and felt sick,” telling BBC after the race, “I should have handed them back and not had pictures done but I was feeling unwell and spaced out and not thinking clearly.”
Officials on the athletics panel didn’t seem to buy her reasoning, noting in their verdict, “Even if she was suffering from brain fog on the day of the race, she had a week following the race to realise her actions and return the trophy, which she did not do.
“Finally, she posted about the race on social media, and this did not disclose that she had completed the race on a non-competitive basis.”
Zakrzewski, who is originally from Dumfries in Scotland, now lives near Sydney in Australia.
She has previously set a number of running records including the Scottish 24-hour record, the British 200k, and the Scottish 100 miles record.
With Post wires.
