Say It Ain’t So, Jo!
The Trans Pennine Trail in Northern England spans 207 miles as it snakes along functioning railways and live canals, languidly connecting Southport in the west and Hornsea in the east. Points of interest along the popular trail include Liverpool (home of the Beatles), the Winscar Reservoir (which had to be drained completely in 2001 and resealed after a leak in its dam caused leakage of 210K cubic feet of water daily) and the Humber Bridge in Hessle (which when it was christened in 1981 by Queen Elizabeth was at the time the longest suspension bridge in the world with its 1.4 mile length). The Trans Pennine Trail also doubles as the backbone for the Manchester to Liverpool Ultra 50, an ultramarathon known to runners as an accessible, entry-level race ideal for those seeking personal bests or an introduction to ultra-running. Hence its popularity. The race’s 2023 iteration, held this past April, rocketed into infamy but for the flagrant transgressions of one of its storied participants: Joasia Zakrzewski. Joasia medaled onto the podium and tumbled from it just seven days later amid a cheating scandal whose details are as ludicrous as the excuses that would go on to incredibly fall from Joasia’s own mouth. The cost to enter the Liverpool Ultra is $125; for Joasia, the expense turned out to be incalculable.
The Manchester to Liverpool Ultra 50 is accessible to a reason. Surfaced paths, paved roads, gravel trails, gentle gradients, leafy trees providing abundant shade and tranquil, temperate weather unite to smile upon would-be ultramarathoners. 50 miles dotted with six checkpoints and a 14 hour cutoff are the only waypoints standing between an everyday runner and a triumphant IG reel greeted with jubilant fanfare. For 47 year old Joasia Zakrzewski, running was always a parallel passion to her primary work as a medical doctor in Scotland. In the close-knit work of ultramarathoning, Joasia was known as an accomplished athlete. She was awarded back-to-back bronze medals in the 2014 and 2015 IAU World 100km Championships. In 2016, she was coronated as the first-ever female to win the 54 mile so-called Race to the King in South Downs. Joasia leveled-UP in the throws of the Pandemic in 2020 when she broke a trio of world records in Sydney. Just this past February, Joasia incredibly ran 255 miles in Taiwan and in doing so set a 48-hour world record. So with her arrival at the Liverpool Ultra 50, Joasia brought the streed cred and celebrity of a seasoned and proven athlete. Which is why what happened next is just so baffling.
The Liverpool Ultra 50 started off uneventfully and unsurprising was Joasia’s bursting of the tape in just under seven and a half hours later. An extremely fast time that afforded the celebrated athlete third place behind Kelsey Wimberley (7:04:23) and Emily Newton (7:24:55). As soon as the Ultra 50 had wrapped for the day, race director Wayne Drinkwater (yes his real name) received disturbing information from a runner claiming that Joasia had cheated around the half-way mark of the course. The runner, incredulous and furious, did not have proof but made a point to tap his wrist-mounted GPS tracker, cryptically signaling to Wayne a foolproof way to validate the standings. And so, Wayne requested GPS data for all finishers; a query that wouldn’t return to his inbox for several days. But when it did arrive, he carefully pieced together Joasia’s whereabouts against waypoints and — critically — the clock. And then he saw IT. Just as the anonymous runner had claimed, around mile 24, Joasia was clocked at covering a mile in 100 seconds flat. A rate that equates to nearly 36 mph; quite the unbelievable sprint. Further GPS metadata revealed Joasia to have maintained that incredible pace for another mile and a half.
Infuriated, Wayne immediately FaceTimed Joasia, who by this time had already journeyed home to Sydney. When confronted with the evidence, she hesitated and glanced off-screen nervously tussling with her hair. The silence said everything Wayne needed to know. The long pause punctuated with Joasia’s admission that she had accepted a ride from a friend after incurring injury. Wayne cut her off, declaring her a cheater and striking Joasia from the race. He finished by declaring that his team would be in touch with punitive next steps. Backed into a corner and mere moments from blistering public ridicule, embarrassment and permanent reputational damage, Joasia felt she had no choice but to attempt a first-mover advantage. She should have rethought the strategy.
Her now-famous interview with the BBC couldn’t have gone worse. Her ludicrous, world salad of an explanation landed just as ridiculously as it was contrived. Recall, the following is from an acclaimed ultra-marathoner. She claimed that at the mile 24 mark, her leg had become sore causing her to limp, the pain swelling to intolerable levels. Joasia, as luck would have it, eyed a friend nearby spectating along the shoulder of the trail. She drones on to recount that she regrettably accepted a ride in his vehicle to the next checkpoint, two and a half miles away but feared she had no choice in soothing the throbbing, piercing discomfort. She claimed to have confessed to a race captain at the checkpoint that she was withdrawing from the race and would “carry on in a non-competitive way.” She went on to dubiously proclaim that she valiantly didn’t overtake the runner she would go on to catch up with (a car will do that) so as not to interfere with that runner’s race. Joasia nevertheless crossed the mat in third place and was awarded a medal, a wooden trophy and posed joyfully for pictures. When pressed by the reporter as to why she accepted the accolades, the medal, the trophy knowing what she had done, Joasia blamed fatigue, jetlag and illness. Everything but fraud. “I should have handed them back and not had pictures done bit I was felling unwell and spaced out and not thinking clearly,” Josiah pleaded. Wayne, the race director, called immediate BS. He countered to the same reporter that all race captains and marshals offered sworn statements completely contradicting all of Joasia’s purported boo-hoo excuses. In an instant, a reputation ruined and immediate questions raised of illicit behavior strewn across her entire 12 year run of now suspect accomplishments.
Joasia’s Spring 2023 misadventure remains an indelible parable and serves as a powerful reminder that brands and good will are built meticulously across years and decades. That reputation can deflate in an instant with any hint of betrayal. For Joasia, she entered the Liverpool Ultra 50 and immediately proceeded to step onto treadmill of rakes of her own volition. That she deigned to explain away her behavior as if she had no choice BUT to deceive perhaps best characterizes her ethos as an athlete. Nearly a decade and a half of hard-fought accomplishment and lauded accomplishment, smeared with sobering deception and each affixed with a permanent scarlet asterisk. With UK Athletics officially banning her from sanctioned events for 12 months and forbidding her from representing Great Britain for the same time frame, Josaia is left to reflect, reset and renew in Sydney as she cares for patients as a primary care physician. She has vowed to make amends and plans to continue running, if uncompetitively for now. It’s said that every marathon begins with a step. For Joasia, that next first step may prove to be the most painful, defining and clarifying stride of her life as she attempts to clear the cloud of suspicion that she’s become enshrouded within. No excuses this time. Certainly no Ubers.
