'Faster Than Farah' Runner Denies Cheating

A man accused of jumping over a barrier during the London Marathon to finish the race in an impressive time has denied allegations he cheated.

Jason Scotland-Williams, 34, told the Sunday Telegraph that stewards along the route would have made it impossible for him to cheat.

The Sun newspaper claimed there were allegations that the runner jumped the barrier just after the half-way point and rejoined the race at a later stage.

The suggestion is that by missing out a portion of the race, Mr Scotland-Williams was able to post an unusually fast time.

"I have done nothing wrong," he told the paper. "Nobody thinks maybe I just trained hard. No one thinks 'maybe he paced himself through the first half and when the second half came he just let himself go'.

"All along the route there are stewards and people watching. There's no way you can cheat."

Mr Scotland-Williams finished the second half of the route in one hour, one minute and 42 seconds - more than three minutes faster than double Olympic running champion Mo Farah and just three minutes short of the world record for a half marathon.

It took him two hours seven minutes and five seconds to run the first half, which meant his finishing time was three hours eight minutes and 47 seconds.

A spokeswoman for the marathon told Sky News that an investigation into Mr Scotland-Williams' results was under way.

She said: "We are aware that unfortunately a few runners who take part in the marathon ... decide to take short cuts.

"We have a number of anti-cheating measures in place during the event itself to remove such runners, and then post event when we analyse split times from our extensive timing points around the course.

"This process is one of many that take place post event and usually takes between 10-15 working days to conclude.

"Runners who are found to have cheated are removed from the results and banned from future London Marathon events."