Over the past year, several prominent investigations into alleged running cheats have spawned a meticulous and often ruthless culture of internet sleuths. Their investigations are thorough, and they hope to get the identified runner to admit guilt. At minimum, they expect race organizers to issue a disqualification if the information found shows enough proof.

To that cohort of online investigators, 18-year-old Ryan Lee’s results from the 2016 London Marathon initially looked suspicious. But instead of leading the charge to disqualify him, a number of online commenters led a campaign to prove his innocence.

At first, several red flags put the teenager on the radar for an investigation. Lee’s timing chip did not register at the 5K mat, and his splits showed that after crossing the starting line he reached the 10K mat in a swift 34 minutes—a 5:30-minute per-mile pace. With a finishing time of 3:58, Lee went on to average a 9-minute per-mile pace for the remainder of the course. Race maps show the opening section of the London Marathon provides plenty of spots to shave off a few kilometers along the winding streets in the city’s old southeastern district.

Derek Murphy, the founder of the blog Marathoninvestigation.com, saw these facts and came to the same early conclusion as many others, including officials from the London Marathon: Ryan Lee must have cut the course.

“The first evidence I saw, I thought he probably cheated,” Murphy said.

Lee’s results disappeared from the web a few days after the event when London Marathon officials became suspicious of his results. Race organizers contacted him and requested proof that he could run a 34-minute 10K, but Lee did not have any previous offical 10K times. People started calling him a cheater online after the story of his disqualification surfaced in local media outlets.

Perhaps the only person to believe that Lee ran all 26.2 miles on April 24 was his mother, Liz Lee.

As online commenters gathered evidence to prove her son did not run the full distance, she called for their help in vindicating him.

“I know my children,” she told Runner’s World at the end of May. “I know that they would never cheat.”

On Facebook and in local British media outlets, she pleaded for spectator photos from the early part of the race that would prove her son could not have cheated. Hundreds rolled in, and she began sifting through them on breaks during work and at night.

Murphy heard about Lee’s mother’s efforts from an online story. He sent an email listing facts about why her son likely cheated.

But after two days, a blurry photo emerged from a spectator. Lee appears on the left in a blue sweatshirt, which he later removed during the race revealing a yellow T-shirt.

A photo sent to Liz Lee by a spectator shows her son, in the blue sweatshirt on the left. Murphy used the bib numbers on other runners in the image to prove Ryan Lee did not cut the course. Liz Lee

Liz responded to Murphy and asked him to take a closer look at the photo to see if it could prove her son's innocence. Murphy examined the bib numbers and splits of the surrounding runners, and he found that according to their results, they started about 15 minutes earlier.

“The photo was taken two miles in; based on Lee’s official starting time it would have been impossible for him to be running with them,” Murphy said. Instead, Murphy discovered that Lee’s starting time, which was supposed to be recorded when his chip crossed the starting line, was incorrect. His chip should have recorded a time 15 minutes earlier than it did, which means he ran his first 10K in a much more consistent 50 minutes. The chip also failed to record when he crossed the 5K mat.

“Once I realized the starting time posted on the London Marathon's results was wrong, I started fighting for this kid,” Murphy said. He posted a series of blogs detailing why Lee could not have cut the course.

The evidence led the London Marathon to conduct an internal investigation. On May 23, more than a month after the race, Liz received word from race organizers that her son would be reinstated on the results. They updated his official time to 4:13:41.

“I am still deciding how to go about shouting this from the rooftops and how to celebrate,” she posted on Facebook.

Murphy, who examines race results as a hobby, normally uses evidence to out cheaters. But, he said helping prove Lee’s innocence has been one of his favorite cases.

Lee plans to return to run the 2017 London Marathon.

Kit Fox Special Projects Editor Kit has been a health, fitness, and running journalist for the past five years.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io