Robert HP Young

Robert HP Young
Personal information
Full name Robert HP Young
Nickname(s) Marathon Man UK
Nationality British
Born (1982-10-18)18 October 1982
Portsmouth, Great Britain
Height 6 ft (183 cm)
Weight 79 kg (174 lb)
Website www.marathonmanuk.com
Sport
Sport Extreme Endurance Runner

Robert Young ("Marathon Man UK";[1] born 18 October 1982) is a British participant in ultra distance running. He was accused of, and subsequently proven to have cheated on his trans-America record attempt in 2016.[2] Outside Magazine has written an article about his deceit,[3] as has The Guardian.[4][5] His former sponsor, SKINS, launched an independent investigation into his cheating. This investigation 'found ‘no alternative plausible explanation’ than Young received unauthorised assistance, riding in his support vehicle for much of the early part of the 'run'.'.[6] Following the report, Young was dropped by SKINS as a sponsor, and as an Ambassador for charity Dreams Come True. Many of his other claims, including to have been a triathlon champion, a professional cyclist and to have completed a host of self-styled ultra-running feats are unsubstantiated and have been called into question by independent observers.

Early years

Young has made many unsubstantiated claims that his father was abusive and as a young child Young allegedly witnessed the sexual assault of his sister, the torture of his mother and even the killing of the family dog[7] Rob also purports he was tortured on a daily basis.[8]

At eight years old Young claims he was put into an Orphanage before being fostered at 12. After leaving school and on completion of his A-levels aged 17, Young maintains he joined the British Army in Royal Corps of Signals where he served for five and a half years. During that time Young claims to have represented Great Britain at Junior level in Biathlon (run-swim-run), finishing in last place at the World Junior Championships.[9] He also maintains that he was selected for the GB junior duathlon team having finished 4th at the national championship.[10] However Robert does not appear in the national championship results[11] and ranked only 18th of 22 for the year with a solitary ranking performance of 7th in a field of 8 at Cambridge.[12]

He then focused on the triathlon and after a mediocre showing at Sater (June 2004)[13] in July that year he claims to have represented Great Britain (on the non-elite 20-24M age group team), placing 3rd at the 2004 European Long Course Triathlon Championship in Immenstadt, Germany.,.[14] There were only 6 entrants[15] in his age group and his name does not appear in the results.[16] Mr Young previously claimed to be a professional cyclist, insinuating he rode with the German based Team Milram, although there is no evidence that he was employed by that team, or any other, or has any amateur or professional cycling pedigree.

In 2014 Young quit his job and started running full-time. Young has visited many schools to give inspirational talks on the importance of honesty and effort.[17] He repeatedly states that truth and integrity are at the core of any running record, saying in an interview to the UK podcast 'Marathon Talk' on Wednesday 15 October 2014 (episode 249)[18] where he stated that "There's lots of different records, there's a lot of different rules and for me I want to be able to break the unofficial records and reset the rules. For me I think the rules are very lax at the moment and I think we need some really solid rules across the board all the way. Not only in this country but worldwide as well..." In May 2015 he was interviewed by the UK Newspaper Midlands News Express & Star[19] regarding the controversy surrounding Mark Vaz and stated "It would have been close to beating the greatest runner ever Yiannis Kouros and that is not happening anytime soon. It just undermines the sport that we love."

In early 2015 Young become a brand ambassador for Dreams Come True, a charity helping children and young people with serious and life-limiting conditions aged between 2 and 21 years old. In January 2016 he was signed to the clothing brand Skins as an ambassador, again citing truthfulness as a value he admired: "plus the guy I met from skins was truthful and a pleasure to meet". SKINS and Dreams Come True both dropped Mr Young in October 2016 when the report SKINS commissioned into his Trans-America record attempt concluded that he had systematically cheated by riding in his support vehicle for much of the journey.[20]

Trans-American Footrace

On June 2, 2015 Robert Young won the Trans-American Footrace in a time of 482 hours 10 minutes.[21][22] There were only 7 participants who competed in all stages,[23] and of these stages Rob finished first in 92 of the 122. Not all of these were at or above marathon distance however, with some races as short as 4.6 miles (Arizona).[24] Mr Young habitually ran away from the field at the start of each day, running unobserved and often reaching checkpoints before the race organizers could arrive there.

The 3,100 mile event started in Huntington Beach, California and passed through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, finishing at the White House in Washington, D.C..

Fastest trans-American run attempt

From May to June, 2016, Young set out on an unsuccessful attempt to run across America and achieve the fastest ever time. Accusations of cheating and foul play were made by members of the online community after his support vehicle was spotted traveling at running pace without anyone running alongside it, however Young's associates flatly denied any wrong doing. Media outlets such as Sports Illustrated,[25] Runner's World,[26] Outside,[3] Running Magazine.ca[27] and Deadspin[28] reported the story. Young's team did not upload raw GPX tracking data to substantiate his claimed distances, which included a 2.30 marathon distance at 8,000 feet, citing the difficulty of accessing the internet or cell phone coverage in the United States. This led the website Deadspin to report that Robert Young was "a massive fraudster who has been lying about the whole thing and secretly traveling in an RV at running pace".[28] However on his website his support team stated "We are out in the open doing something without guile or manipulation, and to accuse us or Rob of doing anything else is a very low thing to do, and completely without basis. Anyone who doubts the legitimacy of what Rob is doing is free to find us and follow us and to see for themselves what Rob is achieving.".[29] Mr Young's pace and mileage dropped sharply when he was independently observed by Gary Cantrell, creator of the Barkley Marathons, and on June 17, 2016 the attempt was stopped, allegedly due to injury.

Despite Mr Young's promises to publish GPS data, including the cadence and heart rate information that would help establish his innocence, the information was not released.[30] Young claimed to be tracking that information during his run but in an interview about the cheating allegations, Young 'declined to answer' why he had not released cadence data as of July 8, 2016. . Mr Young restored his watches to their factory condition, wiping their data, before handing them to the investigators and refused them access to the laptop where the full data was supposedly held. However the investigators were able to use Tom Tom data he had previously uploaded, and which cannot be manipulated after the fact, to prove that Mr Young had ridden in his support vehicle for much of the time, particularly at night when his deception was less likely to be noticed. The independent report commissioned by his sponsors SKINS was published on October 2 and a media release by SKINS announced they had terminated their relationship with Mr Young as a result.

Following this incident, Young restricted his Facebook page to UK users only, despite the fact that over 75% of Young's Facebook page fans are apparently in Turkey (suggesting fake/paid for likes) and only 16% in his home country, the UK.[4]

Running highlights

Young has allegedly completed a number of endurance feats. Most notable among his claimed achievements are:

Listed and awards

See also

References

  1. ↑ Published: November 28, 2014 (2014). "Marathon Man UK". marathonmanuk.com.
  2. ↑ "Robert Young fakes run across America". www.letsrun.com. Retrieved 2016-06-10.
  3. 1 2 Bethea, Charles (2016-06-09). "Is Rob Young Really Running Across the Country?". Outside Online. Retrieved 2016-06-10.
  4. 1 2 "Guardian Newspaper". The Guardian. 22 June 2016.
  5. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/oct/02/robert-young-marathon-sponsor-stands-tall
  6. ↑ http://www.outsideonline.com/2120811/did-ultramarathoner-rob-young-cheat-verdict
  7. ↑ Mail - the abuse at the hands of a father.
  8. ↑ Marathon Man UK background.
  9. ↑ Results of the 2003 Biathle World Championships in Monaco
  10. ↑ Roberts Facebook post claiming to have finished 4th in the national duathlon championships
  11. ↑ 2004 National Duathlon Championship Results
  12. ↑ 2003 UK Duathlon Rankings
  13. ↑ "2004 Sater Itu Long Distance Triathlon World Championships: Tri:::Swim-4K, Bike-120K, Run-30K at Athlinks.com". www.athlinks.com. Retrieved 2016-06-24.
  14. ↑ Mention of 3rd place in 2004 European Long Course Tri Champs on runnersworld.co.uk triathlon message board (only known reference).
  15. ↑ 2004 European Long Course Entry List
  16. ↑ "Immenstadt July 2004 triathlon results".
  17. ↑ St Andrews School.
  18. ↑ Tom Williams, Martin Yelling (15 October 2014). "Marathon Talk".
  19. ↑ "Midlands Express & Star".
  20. ↑ http://www.marathoninvestigation.com/
  21. ↑ Race Across USA Results.
  22. ↑ Sky Sports - Trans-America 3100 mile race winner by 30 hours.
  23. ↑ "Race Across USA 2015 (Core Team)".
  24. ↑ "2015 results".
  25. ↑ O'Connor, Brion. "Marathon Man UK denies cheating in record attempt". www.si.com. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
  26. ↑ "Runner Attempting Trans-America Record Denies Cheating Allegations". Runner's World. 2016-06-10. Retrieved 2016-06-13.
  27. 1 2 "LetsRun.com users play hardball and claim that man's run across the U.S. is fake - Canadian Running Magazine". Canadian Running Magazine. 2016-06-10. Retrieved 2016-06-11.
  28. 1 2 Redford, Patrick. "Is This Ultramarathoner Faking His Record-Breaking Attempt?". Fittish. Retrieved 2016-06-11.
  29. ↑ "Day 22-24 (June 03/06) We're not in Kansas anymore.". Retrieved 2016-06-10.
  30. ↑ "Runner's Trans-America Record Attempt Ends After Injury". Runner's World. 2016-06-20. Retrieved 2016-06-20.
  31. ↑ Mens Running.
  32. ↑ Flying Runner.
  33. ↑ http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&thread=7355147&id=7474073#7474073
  34. ↑ http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&thread=7355147&id=7735350#7735350
  35. ↑ the Guardian - That isn’t possible or is it.
  36. ↑ BBC "Marathon Man" Rob Young prepares for the Great North Run.
  37. ↑ Winner of the 2015 International Peace and Sports Awards - Champion of the year
  38. ↑ Listed as one the 5 Most Extreme Athletes You'll Ever Meet.
  39. ↑ Independent on Sunday's - Top100 people who make Britain a happier place to live, nominated by you and endorsed by David Cameron.
  40. ↑ Voted top 50 most inspirational Londerers.

External links

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