Chinese fitness influencer celebrates personal best at marathon, photo shows her on bicycle during race, sponsor drops her

A Chinese fitness influencer who celebrated a personal best at the Berlin Marathon has apologised after photographs emerged showing her accepting a bicycle ride during the race.

Known online as Abeeeer, she admitted in a social media statement that she had violated race rules and deliberately concealed the incident when sharing her results afterwards.

Her sponsor, Brooks China, subsequently announced it had ended its partnership with her.

Celebrated personal best

Abeeeer, whose real name is Sun Yuanyuan, shared her Berlin Marathon finish timing to her nearly 530,000 Xiaohongshu followers, according to Southern Metropolis Daily.

In her post after the Sep. 27 race, she described feeling comfortable early on and shared the approach she said helped her persevere.

“The first 15km went smoothly and felt comfortable. I kept telling myself that slow is fast,” she captioned her celebratory post in Chinese. 

She claimed a personal best of 4 hours, 53 minutes and 46 seconds. However, photographs subsequently circulated showed her sitting on the back of a bicycle near the 38km mark. 

The images were first posted by the Official Marathon Time Integrity Unit (OMTIU), an unofficial "watchdog" page. Its Instagram account investigates questionable race results, particularly those claimed by running influencers, and publishes its findings.

After reviewing her race timings, OMTIU flagged a section of the results showing she covered the stretch from 35km to 40km in 30 minutes and 49 seconds, her fastest 5km split of the race. That section matched up with the area where she was photographed riding a bicycle. 

Sun said she initially intended to withdraw 

According to Lianhe Zaobao, Sun initially explained that she felt unwell at the 38km mark and accepted a friend’s bicycle ride to find a race official with the intention to withdraw.

She claimed she later decided to continue after being told she could still finish and achieve a personal best. She also claimed she returned to where she had boarded the bicycle and did not shorten the distance she needed to complete.

Admitted to concealing the bicycle ride

Sun published an apology on Oct. 3.

In her statement, titled “A sincere apology”, she acknowledged that accepting the bicycle ride violated the rules.

“I won't make any excuses for this behaviour,” she wrote.

The influencer said feeling unwell on the course should never have been a reason to break the rules, and acknowledged that her actions showed disrespect for the "fairness of the competition and the spirit of the marathon".

She also admitted that her conduct extended to how she presented her achievement afterwards:

“After the race, I deliberately hid this fact when sharing my experience with others. That was very dishonest and went against the sportsmanship of fair play in marathons. I feel deeply guilty about this."

She apologised to everyone and said she was reflecting deeply on her actions.

“When you are wrong, you must accept criticism and supervision,” she concluded.

Sun later reposted her apology, saying Xiaohongshu had removed the original post after users reported it. She clarified that she had not deleted it herself.

Brooks China ends partnership

In an Oct. 4 statement posted on its Xiaohongshu account, Brooks China announced it had ended its partnership with Sun.

They said that after learning of the relevant circumstances, they had "immediately terminated" their partnetship with Sun, and would never work with her again.

Brooks said it had agreed to support her participation in the Berlin Marathon and supplied race equipment after learning about her training plans and race goals.

However, it acknowledged shortcomings in its checks after the race.

The brand apologised following the incident, acknowledging that this was an oversight on its part.

It said it would select partners more carefully, review the incident and improve its procedures for assessing partnerships and managing risks involving races.