47-year-old Dr Joasia Zakrzewski has been stripped of third place in the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool 50-mile race after data uploaded to Strava showed that she used a car for a 2.5 mile stretch of the race.
Zakrzewski, who works as a GP in Dumfries, has set both national and international ultrarunning records and recently won a 48-hour race in Taipei. Her time has been disqualified from the GB Ultras event and the case has been referred to UK Athletics.
A friend of Zakrzewski’s told the BBC: “The race didn’t go to plan. She said she was feeling sick and tired in the race and wanted to drop out. She has cooperated fully with the race organisers’ investigations, giving them a full account of what happened.”
Third place has been passed on to ultrarunner and podiatrist Mel Sykes, who referred to the events as “good news for me […] but really bad news for sportsmanship”.
Race director Wayne Drinkwater made the following statement:
“The issue has been investigated and, having reviewed the data from our race tracking system, GPX data, statements provided from our event team, other competitors and from the participant herself, we can confirm that a runner has now been disqualified from the event having taken vehicle transport during part of the…
