Authorities have identified a man who poured rum into sports drinks meant for runners who participated in last Sunday’s Mexico City marathon.
The director of the Mexico City Institute of Sport, Javier Hidalgo Ponce, told the newspaper El Universal that the identity of the drink spiking culprit had been established.
In a video posted to social media, an apparently intoxicated man announces that he is going to pour rum into cups of sports drinks at a hydration station set up for participants in the 42-kilometer race. He said his aim was to get the runners drunk.
The footage shows the man – who doesn’t appear on camera – haphazardly pouring rum into scores of cups on a table at a hydration station in the neighborhood of Polanco.
Un hombre vació media botella de alcohol en las bebidas que se darían a los participantes del Maratón de la #CDMX… pero el Instituto del Deporte ya interpuso una denuncia penal contra la persona.
Por chistosito podría ir a prisión. pic.twitter.com/FRhfAiXDzy
— Ruido en la Red (@RuidoEnLaRed) August 30, 2022
Hidalgo said that no runners actually drank the spiked drinks because people working at the hydration station realized what happened. He said the offender was drunk and perpetrated the attempted “poisoning” just before 7 a.m. after leaving a night club.
Hidalgo said that the hydration station was located near the 20-kilometer point of the marathon course and that a runner’s consumption of alcohol after running such a distance could be lethal. “We classify this incident as poisoning,” he said.
The official described the mischief-maker as a “classist and racist” person seeking to harm others, but didn’t explain why he used those descriptors. “We’ve detected his name,” Hidalgo said, adding that it would be up to the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office to prosecute him.
Some 19,000 runners participated in Sunday’s race, the 39th edition. Kenyan athlete Edwin Kiptoo won the men’s event, completing the course in two hours and 10 minutes, while Ethiopian runner Amane Beriso Shankule triumphed in the women’s race, crossing the finishing line two hours and 25 minutes after the starting gun.
With reports from El Universal and TV Azteca
