New Identification, Identical Outcomes – MarathonInvestigation

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Jo Bartlett confirmed up at The Stone Steps 27k as an unknown. This may be her first race that exhibits up on Athlinks. She completed because the third place feminine, taking house an award and incomes a comped entry to the 2022 race.

The 2021 Stone Steps 27k and 50k races befell exterior of Cincinnati OH on October twenty fourth. On runsignup.com, the course is described as follows:

Loop course on single monitor technical trails. Hilly course with roots and rocks and occasional tree blow downs. Mud attainable however comparatively dry course. Support station each 3-5 miles.

It was wet on the day of the race, and by the afternoon the course had began to deteriorate. However Jo was working ‘only’ 27k and can be finished earlier than the course deteriorated too badly. The 27k race consists of 4 alternating loops of 5.3 and three.3 miles.

Jo’s cut up occasions as recorded on the web site had been as proven beneath:

Lap 1 (5.3 Miles) 58:46
Lap 2 (3.3 Miles) 49:41
Lap 3 (5.3 Miles) 34:56
Lap 4 (3.3 Miles) 40:47

It's clear that one thing is off with these splits. Her quickest loop was Loop 3 which was an extended loop.

I reached out to David Corfman, the race director, and he suggested me that Jo had mentioned that she mistakenly adopted a 50k runner to the lengthy loop. So, she says she ran two lengthy loops, adopted by two quick loops.

That clarification might have been the top of the investigation, but it surely additionally turned out that she missed a timing mat, and the occasions had been estimated.

Her true splits had been as follows.

8:30 am – Begin
10:18 am – claiming two loops ( whole 10.6 miles)
10:53 am – quick loop 3.3 miles (whole 13.9 miles)
11:33 am – quick loop 3.3 miles (whole 17.2 miles)

David characterised her lengthy loops as quick relative to the quick loops which he believes had been cheap.

Her massive loops averaged 54 minutes – a ten:11 minute per mile tempo. Spectacular given the wet situations and the course elevation. Her quick loops had been slower, along with her final loop slowing to a 12:07 minute per mile tempo.

• Missed Break up. Jo was the one runner to overlook a cut up
• Her excuse of accidently following a 50k runner on the 2nd loop is unrealistic. In keeping with David, she wouldn't have merged with a 50k runner on the porta-potty, however a lot nearer to the ‘obvious timing mat’.
• Her fasted paces had been on the longest loops, regardless of the porta-potty cease.

The Story of ‘Jo Bartlett’

In October Jo Benson setup a fundraiser to assist her legally change her identify to Jo Bartlett. Her objective was $1500. She raised a complete of $1000. Earlier than she stopped taking donations, she said that she was looking for the change to Jo Bartlett as a result of ‘defamation’. She mentioned the cash was wanted to pay for background checks, and so forth. A background verify in Michigan prices $42. There are publication charges, submitting charges, and so forth. Whole charges can be properly underneath the $1500 she was trying to boost. Publicizing a reputation change via a fundraising website is suspicious habits if the objective is to begin over and change into nameless.

Earlier than she began going by the identify Jo Bartlett, or Jo Benson, she was often known as Emily Clark. Emily gained notoriety as a serial cheater. I first wrote about Emily after she claimed 2nd place in The PeaceHealth AppleTree Half-marathon. Her story was picked up by her native media.

She ultimately admitted to dishonest on the race and lots of others. However even after her written admission she took to social media and denied dishonest.

It needs to be clear, even with out her admission there's zero doubt she cheated. She was witnessed by the race director driving a motorcycle through the race. When she was initially questioned, she mentioned it was her twin sister on the bike. She doesn't have a twin sister.

Simply three weeks after her disqualification from The PeaceHealth AppleTree Half-marathon, she participated and was disqualified from The Chicago Marathon.

These tales led to revelation that Emily falsified skilled credentials and practiced as a therapist with no license. After Emily Clark surrendered her license in Washington, ‘Jo Benson’ began practising in Michigan earlier than having that license revoked.

Past Operating

Jo’s, or Emily’s deception goes past working. As reported first first in Willamette Weekly after which in The Ann Arbor Observer, there have been a number of points associated to her counseling enterprise.

• She claimed to have a level from Harvard in neuroscience. She by no means attended Harvard
• She practiced as a counselor in Portland, Oregon with an inactive license
• After gaining notoriety from her race dishonest, and preliminary stories of her pretend diploma and invalid credentials, she moved to Michigan and was capable of get a license to observe underneath the identify of Jo Benson
• Eventually her Michigan license was revoked for ‘deceptive advertising’ for ‘portraying herself as a fully licensed therapist’.

“We count on our licensees to interact with the public with honesty and integrity,” wrote Orlene Hawks, director of the state Division of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) in a press launch. “When they don’t, we must move quickly to make sure that the public is protected from those who don’t follow the law.”
–Ann Arbor Observer, December 2020

In Conclusion

I took my time in publishing this text. I used to be conscious of her GoFundMe web page in December. I reported the fundraiser. Others reported it as properly, and the web page was not accepting donations inside 24 hours of my preliminary report. Whether or not she took the web page down on her personal, or whether or not it was eliminated for violating website guidelines is unknown.

Clark already modified her identify (even when not formally) as soon as in an obvious effort to cover her previous from the general public and potential purchasers. Her focus of her remedy has traditionally been teenage women coping with trauma and physique shaming. I felt it was essential to publicize this second tried identify change to forestall her from deceiving potential purchasers sooner or later.

David indicated that they had been going to take away ‘Jo’ from the outcomes of The Stone Steps 27k and ship a substitute award to the true third place winner. ‘Jo Clark’ had already reached out for her comped entry for the 2022 race.

‘Jo Bartlett’ seems within the outcomes of 1 different race. Jo additionally missed the one intermediate cut up in The 2021 Strategic Staffing Options Turkey Trot 10k. She completed with a time of 55:09.

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