Marathon cheat finds bib... then gets medal!
A SHAVEN-headed imposter claimed a London Marathon medal after picking up a fallen race bib less than two miles from the end and jogging over the finishing line.
Jake Halliday, 28, an investment manager from Edinburgh, had been running for more than three hours in aid of a cancer charity when he was escorted off the course having lost his number.
Minutes later, a bald, bare-chested man who had picked up the race bib with 35179 on it was brazenly kissing a finisher’s medal in front of cameras.
Officials are investigating after a social media campaign was launched for Mr Halliday – who had raised more than £48,000 for Bloodwise – to have his medal returned.
Fellow runner Peter Mowbray, 51, said Mr Halliday was pulled aside by two marshals who had noticed he had no number. He and his wife Louise, 45, from Blackpool, were running their first marathon on Sunday when they heard what had happened to Mr Halliday.
Mr Mowbray, an anaesthetist, who has led the calls for Mr Halliday to get his medal back, said: ‘We went on the Virgin London Marathon website and you can clearly see Jake’s number, and you can clearly see the pictures of Jake are completely different to the guy with his number at the end.
‘To see this man smiling and posing with someone else’s medal made me personally very, very angry.
‘For this man to take all the glory and credit for someone else’s hard work and endeavour really makes me question human life at the moment, it really does.’
Mr Halliday was fundraising with friend Andrew Keiller, 28, for his girlfriend Emma, who was diagnosed with nonHodgkin lymphoma in October 2016.
A spokesman for London Marathon Events said it was investigating.