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Did She Cheat?

Tuesday, 12 April 2016 00:10

By Sarah Lyall (nytimes.com - 4/8/16 - photo collage by FinisherPix.)

SQUAMISH, British Columbia — The race was tough and the conditions dreadful — 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling and 26.2 miles of running, mostly in freezing rain — but Susanne Davis crossed the Ironman Canada finish line last July certain that she had won her category, women aged 40-44.

Davis, who comes from Carlsbad, Calif., and is one of the top triathletes in her age group in the world, had been first out of the water and first off her bike — she was sure of it....

Spectators using a mobile phone race app that shows competitors’ relative positions called out encouragement, telling her she was ahead by a comfortable 10 minutes. As she ran, Davis looked out for rivals, asking the age of every woman she passed or who passed her, and encountered none from her age group.

Yet there she was, accepting the medal for second place at the awards ceremony the next day, five minutes behind a Canadian triathlete named Julie Miller who seemed to have materialized from nowhere and somehow won the race.

Miller, the mother of two young daughters, is a mental-health counselor specializing in body-image disorders here in Squamish. She is also a serious triathlete with a long record of success. Before last year’s race, in Whistler, she had also won her division in the 2013 Ironman Canada, the 2014 Vancouver Triathlon and the 2014 Long Course World Championships in Weihai, China, where she competed for Canada and where her win briefly made her the world champion for her age group.

Davis knew none of that. All she knew was that in more than three hours of hyperconscious running, she had not seen Miller once.  READ