The friend said that when the revelations came out, they divided the community as people debated whether something so grave could possibly be true. A lot of people turned against Miller, he said, gossiping and using the opportunity “to crucify her, to spread a lot of information about her, whether true or not, that was harmful and hurtful.”

Since last fall, Miller has not gone riding with the other bikers in the group, he said, leaving them mystified about what exactly she did, confused about her state of mind and deeply frustrated. She has, he said, never offered a plausible explanation of what happened.

A Missing Timing Chip

Questions swirled around Miller’s performance as soon as she crossed the finish line at Ironman Canada, on July 26, 2015. The race was held in Whistler, a site of the 2010 Winter Olympics just north of Squamish. The day had begun with heavy, freezing rain, and many athletes had dropped out, defeated by the conditions.

But Miller stayed, finishing in 10 hours 49 minutes 3 seconds, a time recorded manually by an official positioned at the finish line and confirmed by photographs and video images of her crossing it.

There was a problem, though: She was missing her timing chip.

Ironman athletes are required to wear timing chips, affixed to Velcro straps they usually wrap around their ankles. The chips are recognized electronically at timing mats positioned along the course, recording an athlete’s time at those points (the interim times are known as splits). Although the Velcro straps sometimes come off, it is practically unheard of for the chip to become dislodged from the strap.

But Miller’s somehow did.

Miller said that the chip had come off as she changed her clothes during the bike-to-run transition, when, apparently, she took off the Velcro strap and then put it back on over her socks. Race records show that, indeed, her chip had recorded a time of 7:17:50 at the end of the bike ride, before going silent.

According to Ironman rules, no chip means no time. Miller was on the verge of being disqualified.

After the triathlon, Claire Young went to a coffee shop in Whistler with her husband, James, also an Ironman athlete. She had finished the race in 11:06:24, right behind Susanne Davis. As far as she had been told, Miller had beaten them both. The Youngs were discussing how odd this seemed when they were interrupted by a woman at a nearby table.