January 18, 2021 • 20 mins
A fishy triathlon time is met with skepticism. A rival coach’s investigation shines light on how she pulled it off. A furious disinformation campaign to obscure the truth. How and why a middle-aged Ironman competitor cut the course in a race with almost nothing at stake.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Trickeration, a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
to Trickeration, the number one podcast about deception in sports,
the only podcast devoted to chronicling acts of deception in
sports scheme scams, hoaxes, pranks, cheating. We're here to break
(00:23):
it all down with actual people involved in these deceitful
and delightful acts. This week the story of Julie Miller,
a middle aged triathlete who tried to pull the wool
over everyone's eyes, and the conversation with the man who
figured it out and brought her down all right onto
the show. This never should have got to the point
(00:52):
where it did. You know, we're just a bunch of
people that are running around, swimming, bicking, running. It is
not important. I just wish she'd said, yeah, I just
screwed up, so that her life really just didn't get
completely turned over by the fact that she refused to
admit it. Unfortunately, that's not how it worked out, certainly
unfortunately for Julie anyway. This is James Young, a triathlete
(01:15):
and triathlon coach from Canada. Back in James's wife Claire,
was competing in the women age forty four category of
the iron Man Canada. This was a qualification event for
the World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. The grueling race and
Whistler began uneventfully but would end disrupting the life of
(01:35):
one participant forever. Well, no where to stop. It was
a nice sunny day. There was nothing unusual, nothing weird.
It was just a normal July day in Whistler. From
a weather point of view. There was no variables that
were messing up the race. And for people who don't know,
what are the distances of an iron Man and what
(01:56):
is the key to successfully finishing one? Okay, so this
wirres two point four miles, the bike is a hundred
and twelve miles, and then the run is a full marathon,
And if you don't do the right amount of training,
it's going to for sure be a miserable day. I mean,
they really there. The rule of the day is dropped
(02:17):
the ego at the door, because if you go into
it with too much ego, then you're in for a
tough ride. And what kind of athlete is your wife?
And what we're Claire's expectations that day. She's super, super,
super consistent. She never gets injured. Her performances are always
just better each time. Everything that she goes into is
(02:38):
done with almost a robotic monotony to the point where
there's no variables. So she went in there with a
pretty good idea of I'm going to qualify for ConA.
I don't know anyone else out there that is going
to be able to beat me other than Suzanne Davis.
And who is Susan Davis. She's been in triathlon forever.
(03:01):
She was a Coner Age group champion at one point.
So Claire had a pretty good idea of Okay, if
someone's going to beat me, likely beat her. But she's
the one I'm going to beat gunning for. She's the
one that I'm aiming for. So what are the stakes
of something like this? Is there like a monetary prize
in this race and for for top train athletes? What
kind of money can you even me? So there's no money,
(03:23):
Some people gain a little bit of local notoriety in
their town. If you're a pro triathlete, I think that
by the end of the year you could have accumulated
probably enough money to buy a T shirt if you're lucky. Okay,
so this is more of like a hobby for people.
And one thing I've never understood. With all those people running,
how do they even keep track of everyone? And how
(03:44):
do they monitor a race that covers so much ground
throughout the race? There are timing mats that when you
pass over the top of the map, the timing chip
on your ankle registers the time that you did that.
As you pass over the timing matt, you hear like
a little as it registers your chip. The idea is
that they're put down in strategic locations not only to
(04:07):
work out timing as you go around, but also to
make sure that you've actually done the course as well.
And what do these chips look like in and how
do they securely fasten the mind? It's a little device
on your ankle. If you can imagine a plastic Cassio watch,
if you were to take the band off of the
(04:27):
watch and replace the band with a velcro strap, that's
effectively what a timing chip is. And it takes a
considerable force to get the velcro off. Okay, so I
know it goes swim, then bike, then run. Can you
give me an overview of how things progressed in the
race for Claire? Now, Claire swims like a lead something
anything made of lead that's cloud. Claire swim inevitably she's
(04:51):
always behind the certainly mid pack or a little bit
above midpack, but certainly chasing people. So she came out
the swim hadn't lost too much time. I'm then she
got on the bike and like I said, she can
be very, very robot like, so her bike was super
steady all the way around. Claire came off the bike
and at that point Susanne was ahead of Claire. I
(05:13):
think there was about ten minutes difference or something. That's
really an Ironman. Where the race starts, it's who's going
to come first and second, Susanne or Claire. Claire is
categorically a runner first and foremost Suzanne David's great runner.
There's no one that's going to catch those two, not
in a million years. And for the run portion, is
(05:37):
this just like an A to B line or is
it a loop around that they do multiple times? So
you have this little loop at the start of the
run around the lake. Then you wind your way through
um I think it's called the Village Way, which is
a nice path through the whistler trees, through the subdivisions
and head out onto the main road, and they had
(05:57):
had out all the way down to do a turnaround.
And then you come back through and again go through
some of the trails down by the lake, and then
you don't got all of the way back to the start,
but you kind of passed the start off your right,
and then you head out on the Lost Lake loop again.
The first people get off onto the run. There's not
many people on the run course, so you get to
(06:19):
have a very good idea without too much clutter of
who's were and why they're there. The spectators who knew
Susanne would have been shouting your first, your first, your first.
Claire's ten minutes behind. Other people that are friends with Claire,
like Claid, Your second, your second, your second, The person
behind you is quite a way away. And this was
just the entire way around the run. To cut a
(06:41):
long story short, they got to the finish line. Suzanne
came through first, Claire came through second. Everyone's hugging, kissing.
Claire goes over to Susanne, well done, congratulations, blah blah blah.
Claire thinks that's it. I'm qualified. Susanne knows she's qualified,
and Claire and I went to a coffee shop, get
to get a cake and a coffee. Um, And while
we sitting in the coffee shop, I called up the
(07:04):
results because I started obsessing over data and I just
want to find out, Okay, how far was clear behind
on the swim, how far was she away on the bike?
I look at the results, and then suddenly there's Julie Miller. First,
I'm like, where's this Julie Miller come from? It must
be a mistake. And then this kind of bubbly girl
and her husband sitting at the table next to us, saying,
are you talking about Julie Miller? And I said yeah,
(07:26):
And she said to me, I've just looked at the
results and seen her name pop up with her three
twenty five marathon. She said, there is no way she
ran that time. I know I live in the same town.
There is no way she ran that. So I said, okay,
it's just one of those timing screw ups. And the
timing gets screwed up quite often. There's so many people,
so many timing mats, it's not unusual. So we went
(07:47):
over to the officials and we spoke to them. The
race officials in foremed Claire and James that a woman
named Julie Miller had actually crossed the finish line first,
but was missing her timming chip. So that was the
first time that we'd heard that there was no timing chip.
And then what happened is actually crossed the finish line.
She said, oh, you know, I don't have a time
and chip, but I'm Julie Miller and there's the time
(08:10):
on the clock. Can you make sure you registered my time?
And what did she claim had happened to her chip?
So she claimed that when she was getting changed that
her timing chip came off going into the first transition
where you get your bike. The judges looked into it,
and I think by the end of that evening they're
disqualified from the rankings, Like she just wasn't there anymore.
They're taking it down. So we thought great, was all
(08:31):
sorted out, no problem. Then when it got to the
awards ceremony, we thought that, okay, Suzanne's first, clayer second,
blah blah blah. So we're all standing backstage. They called
the ladies up first, and then I think they did
it round backwards. I'm not sure. They called up clear
third and she was like what And then Susanne's second,
and Suzanne's like, I don't know what's going on here,
and Julie Miller first. So they're lined up and they've
(08:54):
all got their awards kind of held up in front
of them, standing on a stage facing the entire crowd,
and there's this amaze using photo of the four women
discussing amongst themselves. What on earth is going on? In
Susanne's pointing at Julie Miller, So Evan collapsed, Well done,
you've middle aged. Try athletes can get off the stage.
So as they go off, Susanne literally ran over and
(09:16):
kind of grabbed hold of Julie's Miller's shoulders and said,
where did you come from? I didn't see you out.
There is no way you beat me in that race.
And Julie was like trying to basically get away at
this point, and I remember just being a surreal moment.
I mean, track, these are fairly nice to each other,
and for someone to be so forceful, I think it's
probably the only time I've ever seen that kind of
(09:37):
frustration from one athlete to another. You just don't really
get that. So we asked about it and they said
that she had come with her coach and very forcefully
said that no, everything's good. That is the time that
I should have run. James and Claire drive the five
(09:58):
hours from Whistler to their home in Colo, British Columbia,
unsure what to do next about this curious result. So
we got home and I was kind of half looking
at staff sitting there with a computer and an ever
note up on the screen, and I just thought, it's
just a nightmare. Where do you start. You've got an
entire day of stuff and times and people, and how
(10:19):
do you know who was where and when? And she
doesn't have a chip, there's nothing for me to check.
Then I got a strange anonymous email saying my name
is the Honest Athlete, and I don't believe that this happened.
There is no way she ran that The honest Athlete
who had sent me the email started to go down
the path and of looking at different times and but
(10:42):
she had some information, but it was all in a
bit of a wrong order. So James started digging into
the information, starting with photos posted online of the run
section of the risk. I mean, I am a coach,
so I kind of know what people look like when
they run and from the photos, it was like, it
doesn't look like the best runner in world. Also, when
(11:02):
you run, and you run fast, you generate a lot
of heat. She was wearing bright purple shoes, bright yellow socks,
and for some reason she decided to wear a coat
for the first for the first bucket. I mean it
was a it was a run jacket, the kind of
run jacket that you'd wear in winter. But I mean
that that's just not what a proper athlete does. So
(11:23):
looking at these photos, what are their information? Were you
able to glean? Because I went through the pictures, I
started to notice that Julie appears with other athletes. So
at that point I thought, well, I don't know where
Julie is, but I know where these guys are, and
they have their timing chips. And now I know where
Julie is because she's basically standing next to the people
(11:44):
who have a timing chip in their race number. So
then I really started to be able to dial down
where they were. And that meant that now I knew
where Julie was at specific points in the race. So
when I had few of those, I could then work
out how long it took for her to get from
(12:04):
one place to another place. At that point, it was
just a puzzle, and I became a bit fixated on
solving the puzzle. At one point it suddenly ended up
at nine or ten at night, and I've been at
it all afternoon and clears like, James Stock, can you
come to bed? And once you started triangulating all this,
what did you determine about Julie's movements and how she
(12:28):
may have cheated the risk the point that we had
her on the run course, either she spent ages and
ages and ages getting to there and then would have
had an insanely fast finish beyond any world record hold
the pace of any iron man ever, or we missed
the first one and we got her on the second loop,
in which case she had the most insane run ever.
So it really didn't make any sense at all. So
(12:51):
at that point I think there was a shout that
went upstairs to Claire and woke Claire up, who had
already been in bed for half an hour, and saying, Okay,
I think I've found it. And what was Claire's reaction
when you tore there? That was kind of it. Claire
doesn't care, you know, she had done her performance, she'd
seen her time. She was happy with what she did,
(13:12):
and it was in the morning really where she kind
of started to look at it a little bit more.
I remember having the conversation, do you think she knows
like genuine Could it be that she's gone around Mr
Loop or missed an area, or went to the toilet
and turned around and went the wrong way? Did she
do that and then get to the finish line and say,
oh my god, I've done really well. Maybe she was
slightly confused and didn't quite realize what was going on.
(13:35):
Maybe she genuinely thought that she had done it. James
sent the infoto the Iron Man Canada race officials, who
then went to Julie for her explanation. They said, we're
going to temporarily remove you from the listings, but you
have a certain amount of time to provide the evidence
that you did the race. You didn't have a timing chip,
where's your watch, GPS? Where's this? That and the other? Um,
(13:57):
She didn't have anything that could back it up and
was simply insistent on that they accept her word for that.
So what happened next She started to create this snowball
of chaos. She blatantly lied about it over and over again.
I think at that point her friends were phoning me up.
(14:18):
Their only argument was I know her, she wouldn't do it.
But then when I showed them the details, I said, Okay,
I don't care whether she did it or not, just
tell me where this data is wrong. And they couldn't.
She also tried to start some kind of social media campaign.
This was around the time that the promotion of female empowerment,
and she tried to use that against certain other female
(14:41):
individuals to try and stop them from questioning what was
going on and what was happening. But then there was
also the targeting of the people that were trying to
bring the correct outcome. She started to target those people
specifically and try to create some kind of smear campaign
and ends them. And at that point I didn't care
(15:02):
about what Julie thought. It was just a case so, well,
you can't do that to these people that I know,
and you're now trying to not only say that they're wrong,
but create animosity within their hometown towards these people. It
was just one of those things that you're kind of
caught up in the middle of it, and that person
just seems to becoming more and more obnoxious, more and
(15:22):
more arrogant, the fact that they were right causing more
and more trouble. In hindsight, maybe they were just getting
more and more scared that they were going to get
found out. I then started to hear rumors of well,
I've always thought that her result in China was a
bit suspicious, and I've always thought her a result in
order to qualify for China was a bit suspicious. Once
(15:43):
we started to look back at other races, it was
just more blatant cheating. How was she cheating in those
other races? That was it the same or totally different?
They had two races running at the same time, and
Julie was picking and choosing which distance race that she
was in at any given moment, and obviously ended up
with a very fast bike time gave her a qualification
(16:04):
for the i t U World Championships. At the i
t U World Championships, we worked out that she didn't
do the bike course partly due to photos that were
taken by her sister and sent to everyone on the
Canadian team. So it was actually her sister's photos that
kind of led to her town hall a little bit.
(16:26):
So what is the downfall of a triathlete cheater, look like, like,
who's even paying attention to this stuff? There was lots
of stuff online Facebook pages, forums. Then other newspapers and
staff started to pick up on the story. Is this
one of those crazy things that it went from something
that should have been nothing to like a four page
(16:48):
spread in the New York Times and one of the
biggest um interaction stories that they've had with regards to
the number of comments. And I think the phrase they
Julie Millard it started trending at one point. What does
that mean when you say they Julie Miller did if
someone got like a fast time that you thought was unusual,
or if you were kind of jokeally implying that they
(17:11):
cut the run course. Yeah, And I think she actually
might be even changed her name. She might have gone
to a maiden name, because Julie Miller is kind of
such a everyone knows the name. And did Julie ever
resurface in the triathlon world or was that the end
of her career she stopped doing triathlon. I think she
was banned from doing a number of different triathlons, but
(17:35):
she started doing ultra running instead. And I think or
at least I hope that it's it's just something that's
gone under the bridge and she doesn't think about in
her day to day because, like I said before, or
just a bunch of middle aged people running around in Whistler,
it's not something worth wrecking your life over. And why
do you think this story resonated so much with people?
(17:58):
With all the cheating going on in sports, and we
hardly go a day without hearing a story about some
sort of cheating, why did people decide to get so
mad about this specific act. I think that there's a
certain element of things that are done against the rules
that are kind of socially acceptable, and then there's some
(18:19):
things that are done that aren't socially acceptable, with just
blatant cheating, like if you blatantly just don't do some
of the course, it's like saying I don't want to
put the effort in, but I want all of the reward.
And I think that there's an element of that that
makes it worse than anything else. So, knowing what you
know now about how this story kind of exploded and
(18:40):
detonated this woman's life, would you do it again? Would
I do it again? I don't know. It never occurred
to me at the time the repercussions of what I
was doing. All I was thinking was I've taken that
person away who shouldn't be there, and now everything's right again.
It's I think it's of those things it's worth thinking about.
(19:01):
You know, there's always a person behind the name. But
I just wasn't thinking like that at all. If I've
known in advance, maybe I would have just said, let's
just leave it, because it's not worth ruining someone's life for.
But then the other part of me thinks that, you know,
there should have been something done because it wasn't the
right thing to do, and it's not my fault that
she decided to deny it for so long. And at
(19:23):
this point, are you hoping she eventually comes clean and
admits it now. To be honest, there's a little part
of me the things, you know, what you start to
your guns, this a lot of that's pretty impressive. I'd
be almost disappointed, I think if she came clean and said, yeah,
I did it, because I hope that there's a little
bit of a that's thinking, screw you, guys, I'm never
going to tell you, and then just kind of goes
on and keeps it with her for the rest of
(19:45):
her life. All Right, that is it for today. Hope
you enjoyed the episode. A big thanks to James Young
for sharing his story. Check out the Jeames and Clear
World traveling adventure on Instagram at this Big road Trip.
And a reminder, if you have a moment, please rate
(20:05):
and review the show and subscribe and all that good stuff.
And also we're probably around fifty different stories at this point,
so please dig through the archives and find something that
is up your alley. And if you have ideas for
future episodes, please hit the tip line at Trickeration Nation
at gmail dot com. And as we do every week,
(20:26):
we check in with the legend Chris, Matt, Doug Russo, Chris,
how do we do this week? Maddie, good job, keep
up a good work. How thanks Chris. All right, talk
to you guys next week. Trickeration is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(20:46):
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Trickeration, a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
to Trickeration, the number one podcast about deception in sports,
the only podcast devoted to chronicling acts of deception in
sports scheme scams, hoaxes, pranks, cheating. We're here to break
(00:23):
it all down with actual people involved in these deceitful
and delightful acts. This week the story of Julie Miller,
a middle aged triathlete who tried to pull the wool
over everyone's eyes, and the conversation with the man who
figured it out and brought her down all right onto
the show. This never should have got to the point
(00:52):
where it did. You know, we're just a bunch of
people that are running around, swimming, bicking, running. It is
not important. I just wish she'd said, yeah, I just
screwed up, so that her life really just didn't get
completely turned over by the fact that she refused to
admit it. Unfortunately, that's not how it worked out, certainly
unfortunately for Julie anyway. This is James Young, a triathlete
(01:15):
and triathlon coach from Canada. Back in James's wife Claire,
was competing in the women age forty four category of
the iron Man Canada. This was a qualification event for
the World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. The grueling race and
Whistler began uneventfully but would end disrupting the life of
(01:35):
one participant forever. Well, no where to stop. It was
a nice sunny day. There was nothing unusual, nothing weird.
It was just a normal July day in Whistler. From
a weather point of view. There was no variables that
were messing up the race. And for people who don't know,
what are the distances of an iron Man and what
(01:56):
is the key to successfully finishing one? Okay, so this
wirres two point four miles, the bike is a hundred
and twelve miles, and then the run is a full marathon,
And if you don't do the right amount of training,
it's going to for sure be a miserable day. I mean,
they really there. The rule of the day is dropped
(02:17):
the ego at the door, because if you go into
it with too much ego, then you're in for a
tough ride. And what kind of athlete is your wife?
And what we're Claire's expectations that day. She's super, super,
super consistent. She never gets injured. Her performances are always
just better each time. Everything that she goes into is
(02:38):
done with almost a robotic monotony to the point where
there's no variables. So she went in there with a
pretty good idea of I'm going to qualify for ConA.
I don't know anyone else out there that is going
to be able to beat me other than Suzanne Davis.
And who is Susan Davis. She's been in triathlon forever.
(03:01):
She was a Coner Age group champion at one point.
So Claire had a pretty good idea of Okay, if
someone's going to beat me, likely beat her. But she's
the one I'm going to beat gunning for. She's the
one that I'm aiming for. So what are the stakes
of something like this? Is there like a monetary prize
in this race and for for top train athletes? What
kind of money can you even me? So there's no money,
(03:23):
Some people gain a little bit of local notoriety in
their town. If you're a pro triathlete, I think that
by the end of the year you could have accumulated
probably enough money to buy a T shirt if you're lucky. Okay,
so this is more of like a hobby for people.
And one thing I've never understood. With all those people running,
how do they even keep track of everyone? And how
(03:44):
do they monitor a race that covers so much ground
throughout the race? There are timing mats that when you
pass over the top of the map, the timing chip
on your ankle registers the time that you did that.
As you pass over the timing matt, you hear like
a little as it registers your chip. The idea is
that they're put down in strategic locations not only to
(04:07):
work out timing as you go around, but also to
make sure that you've actually done the course as well.
And what do these chips look like in and how
do they securely fasten the mind? It's a little device
on your ankle. If you can imagine a plastic Cassio watch,
if you were to take the band off of the
(04:27):
watch and replace the band with a velcro strap, that's
effectively what a timing chip is. And it takes a
considerable force to get the velcro off. Okay, so I
know it goes swim, then bike, then run. Can you
give me an overview of how things progressed in the
race for Claire? Now, Claire swims like a lead something
anything made of lead that's cloud. Claire swim inevitably she's
(04:51):
always behind the certainly mid pack or a little bit
above midpack, but certainly chasing people. So she came out
the swim hadn't lost too much time. I'm then she
got on the bike and like I said, she can
be very, very robot like, so her bike was super
steady all the way around. Claire came off the bike
and at that point Susanne was ahead of Claire. I
(05:13):
think there was about ten minutes difference or something. That's
really an Ironman. Where the race starts, it's who's going
to come first and second, Susanne or Claire. Claire is
categorically a runner first and foremost Suzanne David's great runner.
There's no one that's going to catch those two, not
in a million years. And for the run portion, is
(05:37):
this just like an A to B line or is
it a loop around that they do multiple times? So
you have this little loop at the start of the
run around the lake. Then you wind your way through
um I think it's called the Village Way, which is
a nice path through the whistler trees, through the subdivisions
and head out onto the main road, and they had
(05:57):
had out all the way down to do a turnaround.
And then you come back through and again go through
some of the trails down by the lake, and then
you don't got all of the way back to the start,
but you kind of passed the start off your right,
and then you head out on the Lost Lake loop again.
The first people get off onto the run. There's not
many people on the run course, so you get to
(06:19):
have a very good idea without too much clutter of
who's were and why they're there. The spectators who knew
Susanne would have been shouting your first, your first, your first.
Claire's ten minutes behind. Other people that are friends with Claire,
like Claid, Your second, your second, your second, The person
behind you is quite a way away. And this was
just the entire way around the run. To cut a
(06:41):
long story short, they got to the finish line. Suzanne
came through first, Claire came through second. Everyone's hugging, kissing.
Claire goes over to Susanne, well done, congratulations, blah blah blah.
Claire thinks that's it. I'm qualified. Susanne knows she's qualified,
and Claire and I went to a coffee shop, get
to get a cake and a coffee. Um, And while
we sitting in the coffee shop, I called up the
(07:04):
results because I started obsessing over data and I just
want to find out, Okay, how far was clear behind
on the swim, how far was she away on the bike?
I look at the results, and then suddenly there's Julie Miller. First,
I'm like, where's this Julie Miller come from? It must
be a mistake. And then this kind of bubbly girl
and her husband sitting at the table next to us, saying,
are you talking about Julie Miller? And I said yeah,
(07:26):
And she said to me, I've just looked at the
results and seen her name pop up with her three
twenty five marathon. She said, there is no way she
ran that time. I know I live in the same town.
There is no way she ran that. So I said, okay,
it's just one of those timing screw ups. And the
timing gets screwed up quite often. There's so many people,
so many timing mats, it's not unusual. So we went
(07:47):
over to the officials and we spoke to them. The
race officials in foremed Claire and James that a woman
named Julie Miller had actually crossed the finish line first,
but was missing her timming chip. So that was the
first time that we'd heard that there was no timing chip.
And then what happened is actually crossed the finish line.
She said, oh, you know, I don't have a time
and chip, but I'm Julie Miller and there's the time
(08:10):
on the clock. Can you make sure you registered my time?
And what did she claim had happened to her chip?
So she claimed that when she was getting changed that
her timing chip came off going into the first transition
where you get your bike. The judges looked into it,
and I think by the end of that evening they're
disqualified from the rankings, Like she just wasn't there anymore.
They're taking it down. So we thought great, was all
(08:31):
sorted out, no problem. Then when it got to the
awards ceremony, we thought that, okay, Suzanne's first, clayer second,
blah blah blah. So we're all standing backstage. They called
the ladies up first, and then I think they did
it round backwards. I'm not sure. They called up clear
third and she was like what And then Susanne's second,
and Suzanne's like, I don't know what's going on here,
and Julie Miller first. So they're lined up and they've
(08:54):
all got their awards kind of held up in front
of them, standing on a stage facing the entire crowd,
and there's this amaze using photo of the four women
discussing amongst themselves. What on earth is going on? In
Susanne's pointing at Julie Miller, So Evan collapsed, Well done,
you've middle aged. Try athletes can get off the stage.
So as they go off, Susanne literally ran over and
(09:16):
kind of grabbed hold of Julie's Miller's shoulders and said,
where did you come from? I didn't see you out.
There is no way you beat me in that race.
And Julie was like trying to basically get away at
this point, and I remember just being a surreal moment.
I mean, track, these are fairly nice to each other,
and for someone to be so forceful, I think it's
probably the only time I've ever seen that kind of
(09:37):
frustration from one athlete to another. You just don't really
get that. So we asked about it and they said
that she had come with her coach and very forcefully
said that no, everything's good. That is the time that
I should have run. James and Claire drive the five
(09:58):
hours from Whistler to their home in Colo, British Columbia,
unsure what to do next about this curious result. So
we got home and I was kind of half looking
at staff sitting there with a computer and an ever
note up on the screen, and I just thought, it's
just a nightmare. Where do you start. You've got an
entire day of stuff and times and people, and how
(10:19):
do you know who was where and when? And she
doesn't have a chip, there's nothing for me to check.
Then I got a strange anonymous email saying my name
is the Honest Athlete, and I don't believe that this happened.
There is no way she ran that The honest Athlete
who had sent me the email started to go down
the path and of looking at different times and but
(10:42):
she had some information, but it was all in a
bit of a wrong order. So James started digging into
the information, starting with photos posted online of the run
section of the risk. I mean, I am a coach,
so I kind of know what people look like when
they run and from the photos, it was like, it
doesn't look like the best runner in world. Also, when
(11:02):
you run, and you run fast, you generate a lot
of heat. She was wearing bright purple shoes, bright yellow socks,
and for some reason she decided to wear a coat
for the first for the first bucket. I mean it
was a it was a run jacket, the kind of
run jacket that you'd wear in winter. But I mean
that that's just not what a proper athlete does. So
(11:23):
looking at these photos, what are their information? Were you
able to glean? Because I went through the pictures, I
started to notice that Julie appears with other athletes. So
at that point I thought, well, I don't know where
Julie is, but I know where these guys are, and
they have their timing chips. And now I know where
Julie is because she's basically standing next to the people
(11:44):
who have a timing chip in their race number. So
then I really started to be able to dial down
where they were. And that meant that now I knew
where Julie was at specific points in the race. So
when I had few of those, I could then work
out how long it took for her to get from
(12:04):
one place to another place. At that point, it was
just a puzzle, and I became a bit fixated on
solving the puzzle. At one point it suddenly ended up
at nine or ten at night, and I've been at
it all afternoon and clears like, James Stock, can you
come to bed? And once you started triangulating all this,
what did you determine about Julie's movements and how she
(12:28):
may have cheated the risk the point that we had
her on the run course, either she spent ages and
ages and ages getting to there and then would have
had an insanely fast finish beyond any world record hold
the pace of any iron man ever, or we missed
the first one and we got her on the second loop,
in which case she had the most insane run ever.
So it really didn't make any sense at all. So
(12:51):
at that point I think there was a shout that
went upstairs to Claire and woke Claire up, who had
already been in bed for half an hour, and saying, Okay,
I think I've found it. And what was Claire's reaction
when you tore there? That was kind of it. Claire
doesn't care, you know, she had done her performance, she'd
seen her time. She was happy with what she did,
(13:12):
and it was in the morning really where she kind
of started to look at it a little bit more.
I remember having the conversation, do you think she knows
like genuine Could it be that she's gone around Mr
Loop or missed an area, or went to the toilet
and turned around and went the wrong way? Did she
do that and then get to the finish line and say,
oh my god, I've done really well. Maybe she was
slightly confused and didn't quite realize what was going on.
(13:35):
Maybe she genuinely thought that she had done it. James
sent the infoto the Iron Man Canada race officials, who
then went to Julie for her explanation. They said, we're
going to temporarily remove you from the listings, but you
have a certain amount of time to provide the evidence
that you did the race. You didn't have a timing chip,
where's your watch, GPS? Where's this? That and the other? Um,
(13:57):
She didn't have anything that could back it up and
was simply insistent on that they accept her word for that.
So what happened next She started to create this snowball
of chaos. She blatantly lied about it over and over again.
I think at that point her friends were phoning me up.
(14:18):
Their only argument was I know her, she wouldn't do it.
But then when I showed them the details, I said, Okay,
I don't care whether she did it or not, just
tell me where this data is wrong. And they couldn't.
She also tried to start some kind of social media campaign.
This was around the time that the promotion of female empowerment,
and she tried to use that against certain other female
(14:41):
individuals to try and stop them from questioning what was
going on and what was happening. But then there was
also the targeting of the people that were trying to
bring the correct outcome. She started to target those people
specifically and try to create some kind of smear campaign
and ends them. And at that point I didn't care
(15:02):
about what Julie thought. It was just a case so, well,
you can't do that to these people that I know,
and you're now trying to not only say that they're wrong,
but create animosity within their hometown towards these people. It
was just one of those things that you're kind of
caught up in the middle of it, and that person
just seems to becoming more and more obnoxious, more and
(15:22):
more arrogant, the fact that they were right causing more
and more trouble. In hindsight, maybe they were just getting
more and more scared that they were going to get
found out. I then started to hear rumors of well,
I've always thought that her result in China was a
bit suspicious, and I've always thought her a result in
order to qualify for China was a bit suspicious. Once
(15:43):
we started to look back at other races, it was
just more blatant cheating. How was she cheating in those
other races? That was it the same or totally different?
They had two races running at the same time, and
Julie was picking and choosing which distance race that she
was in at any given moment, and obviously ended up
with a very fast bike time gave her a qualification
(16:04):
for the i t U World Championships. At the i
t U World Championships, we worked out that she didn't
do the bike course partly due to photos that were
taken by her sister and sent to everyone on the
Canadian team. So it was actually her sister's photos that
kind of led to her town hall a little bit.
(16:26):
So what is the downfall of a triathlete cheater, look like, like,
who's even paying attention to this stuff? There was lots
of stuff online Facebook pages, forums. Then other newspapers and
staff started to pick up on the story. Is this
one of those crazy things that it went from something
that should have been nothing to like a four page
(16:48):
spread in the New York Times and one of the
biggest um interaction stories that they've had with regards to
the number of comments. And I think the phrase they
Julie Millard it started trending at one point. What does
that mean when you say they Julie Miller did if
someone got like a fast time that you thought was unusual,
or if you were kind of jokeally implying that they
(17:11):
cut the run course. Yeah, And I think she actually
might be even changed her name. She might have gone
to a maiden name, because Julie Miller is kind of
such a everyone knows the name. And did Julie ever
resurface in the triathlon world or was that the end
of her career she stopped doing triathlon. I think she
was banned from doing a number of different triathlons, but
(17:35):
she started doing ultra running instead. And I think or
at least I hope that it's it's just something that's
gone under the bridge and she doesn't think about in
her day to day because, like I said before, or
just a bunch of middle aged people running around in Whistler,
it's not something worth wrecking your life over. And why
do you think this story resonated so much with people?
(17:58):
With all the cheating going on in sports, and we
hardly go a day without hearing a story about some
sort of cheating, why did people decide to get so
mad about this specific act. I think that there's a
certain element of things that are done against the rules
that are kind of socially acceptable, and then there's some
(18:19):
things that are done that aren't socially acceptable, with just
blatant cheating, like if you blatantly just don't do some
of the course, it's like saying I don't want to
put the effort in, but I want all of the reward.
And I think that there's an element of that that
makes it worse than anything else. So, knowing what you
know now about how this story kind of exploded and
(18:40):
detonated this woman's life, would you do it again? Would
I do it again? I don't know. It never occurred
to me at the time the repercussions of what I
was doing. All I was thinking was I've taken that
person away who shouldn't be there, and now everything's right again.
It's I think it's of those things it's worth thinking about.
(19:01):
You know, there's always a person behind the name. But
I just wasn't thinking like that at all. If I've
known in advance, maybe I would have just said, let's
just leave it, because it's not worth ruining someone's life for.
But then the other part of me thinks that, you know,
there should have been something done because it wasn't the
right thing to do, and it's not my fault that
she decided to deny it for so long. And at
(19:23):
this point, are you hoping she eventually comes clean and
admits it now. To be honest, there's a little part
of me the things, you know, what you start to
your guns, this a lot of that's pretty impressive. I'd
be almost disappointed, I think if she came clean and said, yeah,
I did it, because I hope that there's a little
bit of a that's thinking, screw you, guys, I'm never
going to tell you, and then just kind of goes
on and keeps it with her for the rest of
(19:45):
her life. All Right, that is it for today. Hope
you enjoyed the episode. A big thanks to James Young
for sharing his story. Check out the Jeames and Clear
World traveling adventure on Instagram at this Big road Trip.
And a reminder, if you have a moment, please rate
(20:05):
and review the show and subscribe and all that good stuff.
And also we're probably around fifty different stories at this point,
so please dig through the archives and find something that
is up your alley. And if you have ideas for
future episodes, please hit the tip line at Trickeration Nation
at gmail dot com. And as we do every week,
(20:26):
we check in with the legend Chris, Matt, Doug Russo, Chris,
how do we do this week? Maddie, good job, keep
up a good work. How thanks Chris. All right, talk
to you guys next week. Trickeration is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(20:46):
you listen to your favorite shows.
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