Corrupt Mexican politician cheats in sports, too

LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images

There’s a saying: Once a cheater, always a cheater. And now former Mexican presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo has proven that he exemplifies that saying perfectly. On Sept. 30, he completed the 26.2-mile Berlin Marathon in an astonishingly fast time of 2 hours, 41 minutes, and 12 seconds (or 6 minutes, 9 seconds, per mile). That time gave him a first-place finish in the men’s age-55 category, a lot better than his humiliating third-place finish in Mexico’s presidential election last year.

But the electronic tracking chip that runners wear on their shoes showed that Madrazo hadn’t crossed two checkpoints and that he apparently ran a nine-mile stretch in just 21 minutes. (The world record for running 15,000 meters—or 9.3 miles—is 41 minutes, 29 seconds.)

Madrazo has a reputation for playing loose with the rules. Mexico’s attorney general’s office determined that his Institutional Revolutionary Party (the PRI) had exceeded campaign spending limits by tens of millions of dollars when he was running—without sneakers, this time—for governor of Tabasco state in the ’90s. He also faked getting kidnapped to gain sympathy.

“If he’s a cheat at one thing, he’ll cheat at anything,” said one Mexico City cab driver upon learning of Madrazo’s suspicious marathon performance.

Madrazo has now been officially disqualified from the race. From now on, this cheater shouldn’t be running any races—that goes for both the political and the athletic kinds.

(Editor’s aside: FP editor Mike Boyer was prescient in pointing out Madrazo’s tendency to be a repeat offender when he wrote in 2005 how the politician could become the Vladimir Putin of Mexico.)