Fitness influencer posts her Berlin Marathon victory. Then she is caught on a bicycle at the 38km mark: ‘This was extremely dishonest’
That personal best came with wheels.
Finishing a marathon with a personal best is usually something worth celebrating. Doing so before photos emerge of you riding on the back of a bicycle during the race makes that victory lap more complicated.
Chinese fitness influencer Abeeeer, who has around 530,000 social media followers, celebrated completing the September 27 Berlin Marathon in 4:53:46. Later, photos circulated showing her riding on the back of a bicycle near the 38-kilometer mark, according to Dexerto.
The images were highlighted by the Official Marathon Time Integrity Unit, an Instagram account that scrutinizes questionable race performances. Abeeeer has since reportedly acknowledged violating the race rules and admitted that she deliberately left the bicycle ride out of her post-race account.
Her fastest stretch coincided with the bicycle sighting
Timing data added another element to Abeeeer’s personal best. Her fastest five-kilometer split came between the 35km and 40km marks, the same portion of the course where she was photographed on the bicycle.
As reported by Need To Know, Abeeeer completed that stretch in 30 minutes and 49 seconds, which was 6 minutes and 2 seconds faster than her previous five kilometers. The timing alone does not establish how much, if at all, the bicycle affected her recorded performance, but it helped draw scrutiny to a race she had publicly celebrated as a personal best.
Abeeeer initially explained on the Chinese social media platform known as RedNote/Xiaohongshu that she had become unwell around the 38km mark. Then she proceeded to get onto a friend’s bicycle while trying to find a race official so she could withdraw. She ultimately decided to finish instead and returned to the place where she had boarded the bike, maintaining that she did not skip any portion of the course.
Marathon runners already put their bodies through plenty whether they unexpectedly become unwell or encounter other speed bumps along the way. One runner previously went viral after showing the alarming imprint her Garmin left on her wrist during training, while another athlete ran a marathon purely to reclaim territory from a rival known only as “The Horse.”
Abeeeer admits she broke the rules
Abeeeer’s explanation had turned into an apology. She acknowledged that riding the bicycle violated the race rules and said she would not use feeling unwell as an excuse for doing so.
“This was extremely dishonest,” Abeeeer wrote of deliberately concealing the ride in her posts after the marathon. She said her actions disrespected both fair competition and the spirit of the marathon, and her marathon-related posts have since been removed.
The consequences appear to have outrun her race time into her professional collaborations. On October 4, Brooks China announced that it had ended its partnership with Abeeeer after verifying the circumstances of her participation. The company said it had supported her Berlin Marathon plans and supplied equipment but acknowledged that it had not sufficiently reviewed her full race participation, including her split data. Brooks China apologized for that oversight and said it would not work with Abeeeer again.
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