Runner banned for 12 months after she admitted to using a car to finish ultramarathon

A Scottish ultramarathon runner has been banned for 12 months from competitive events after a disciplinary panel in the United Kingdom brought down a punitive decision in response to her cheating during a race earlier this year. 

Joasia Zakrzewski admitted to using a car to gain mileage while running the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool race — a 50-mile-long ultramarathon that took place last April. Zakrzewski — who finished third — accepted a medal and a trophy from the marathon organizers, but eventually returned both and admitted after the fact to competing with an unfair edge, according to a written decision by the Independent Disciplinary Panel of UK Athletics in October.

"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," said the disciplinary panel, which noted that Zakrzewski "also did not seek to return the trophy in the week following the race."

By September, Zakrzewski had relinquished both prizes and admitted in a letter to the disciplinary panel that she completed part of the ultramarathon course by car and the rest on foot before accepting the third-place medal and trophy.

"As stated, I accept my actions on the day that I did travel in a car and then later completed the run, crossing the finish line and inappropriately receiving a medal and trophy, which I did not return immediately as I should have done," she wrote in the letter, according to the panel.  

A 47-year-old general practitioner originally from Dumfries, Scotland, Zakrzewski currently lives near Sydney, Australia, and traveled from there to participate in the race from Manchester to Liverpool in the spring, BBC News reported.

Zakrzewski has previously said she got into a car that her friend was driving around the 25-mile mark in April's ultramarathon, because she had gotten lost and her leg felt sore. The friend apparently drove Zakrzewski about 2 1/2 miles to the next race checkpoint, where she tried to tell officials that she was going to quit the ultramarathon. But she went on to complete the race anyway from that checkpoint.

"When I got to the checkpoint I told them I was pulling out and that I had been in the car, and they said 'you will hate yourself if you stop,'" Zakrzewski told BBC News Scotland in the weeks following the ultramarathon. By then, she had admitted to using a car to participate and had been disqualified.

Zakrzewski claimed she did not breach the U.K. code of conduct for senior athletes because she "never intended to cheat, and had not concealed the fact that she had travelled in a car," wrote the disciplinary panel, which disagreed with those claims.

"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," the panel wrote in its decision. "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." 

In addition to being banned from participating in competitive events for a year in the U.K., the disciplinary panel has also prohibited Zakrzewski from representing Great Britain in domestic and overseas events for the same period of time. 

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Emily Mae Czachor

Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.

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