Berlin Marathon disqualifies fitness influencer after bike ride
Her 4:53:46 finish was removed from Berlin Marathon results after disqualification
A Chiness fitness influencer with more than 520,000 social media followers has been disqualified from the Berlin Marathon after hitching a ride on a bicycle during the race.
Yuanyuan Sun, 30, who posts running videos under the name Abeeeer, publicly apologised after images emerged showing her riding on the back of a bicycle during the final kilometres of the September race.
Sun had completed the marathon in 4 hours, 53 minutes and 46 seconds, describing it as a personal best. She also posed for photographs with her finisher’s medal.
However, on Wednesday, race organisers disqualified her and removed her time from the official results.
A ride that raised questions
Images of Sun on the bicycle, along with her race split times, drew attention to her performance in the closing stages.
Her timing data showed a sharp improvement between the 35km and 40km marks, with that section completed around six minutes faster than the preceding five-kilometre stretch.
The images and timing figures raised questions about how she completed the final part of the course.
Influencer issues apology
Sun later published an apology on RedNote, the Chinese social media platform where she has built a following of more than half a million people.
“Riding a bicycle during the Berlin Marathon did indeed violate race rules,” she said in a statement translated from Mandarin.
She acknowledged that feeling unwell during the race did not justify breaking the rules.
Sun also admitted that she had deliberately concealed her actions in the photographs she shared after the event.
The disqualification means her recorded finishing time no longer counts in the official results, turning what she had initially celebrated as a personal best into a lesson in marathon rules and sportsmanship.
