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 Editorials | Issues | October 2007 
Odd Marathon Finish Isn't Mexican Politico's First Controversy
 Sean Mattson - San Antonio Express-News
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| | Roberto Madrazo: Happier days |
Monterrey, Mexico — The flap over Roberto Madrazo's victory in his age group at the Berlin Marathon in September continues in this country.
The former presidential candidate breezed through a 9.3-mile section of the course in 21 minutes — a humanly impossible 27 mph. Race officials disqualified him when a review showed he didn't register at two places along that stretch.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is reeling over the scandal.
"He runs in the name of Robert Madrazo, not in name of the PRI," Emilio Gamboa, a PRI congressman, told the Reforma newspaper.
Jeffrey Weldon, a political scientist with ITAM, a Mexico City university, said the whole thing reminded him of the slogan from a street campaign against Madrazo during his party's presidential primary: "Do you believe Madrazo? Me neither."
"We're seeing a lot of headlines of that sort, that this guy wasn't to be believed as a candidate," Weldon said. "And I guess he shouldn't be believed as sportsman."
Madrazo became governor of Tabasco state with a 1994 victory that was so controversial, PRI leaders asked him to step down before taking office. He's also believed to have once faked his own kidnapping.
He was divisive as his party's national president during the administration of President Vicente Fox but used old-school methods to secure its presidential nomination. As arguably the most unpopular politician in Mexico, he began and ended that race in third place.
"A marathoner never takes the lead at the beginning of the race," he told the San Antonio Express-News on the campaign trail last year. "Just watch me at the end."
In Berlin, many people did.
A video showed a relaxed Madrazo crossing the finish line as exhausted-looking nearby runners sweated profusely.
"He shames the whole country," said José Alfonso Suárez, a congressman with the opposition Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD. "A ... public figure has to be aware that society demands proper conduct in any type of action that we carry out."
The Mexican Athletics Federation, which oversees the country's athletics programs, said it wouldn't comment until Madrazo did.
He hasn't.
Ciro Gómez Leyva, an executive at Milenio newspaper, wrote Tuesday that he saw Madrazo at a Mexico City gym on Monday. Madrazo just shrugged and said he wouldn't comment, Gómez wrote.
Mattson.sean@gmail.com
Politician Finds This Scandal Has Legs
Oscar Avila - Chicago Tribune
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Mexico City - Roberto Madrazo placed a distant third in last year's presidential election, but he did win a race last month: his age division at the Berlin Marathon.
The longtime fixture in Mexican politics, who is dogged by accusations that he bent the rules during his climb to power as a state governor and leader of his party, had seemingly achieved a feel-good triumph in the race.
Not so fast, German officials said this week. He didn't run that fast.
Race officials, who disqualified him, said that an electronic tracking chip shows Madrazo, 55, skipped two checkpoints and apparently took a shortcut to the finish line. Otherwise, to legitimately post his time of 2 hours, 41 minutes, he would have had to cover a 9-mile stretch faster than any human being ever has.
Madrazo's fall from grace had become a firestorm by Tuesday.
Madrazo has never overcome an image shaped by his career with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has a famously corrupt past and is widely believed to have stolen the 1988 presidential election.
Even in a society used to political corruption, the Madrazo affair has become a national joke. The Mexican media and rival politicians have had a field day and have given Madrazo a derisive new nickname: Speedy Gonzalez.
The Web site of the Reforma newspaper posted a drawing of Madrazo showing off the medal he won at the Berlin Marathon. And the medal he won for curing cancer. And the medal he won for discovering a new route to the West Indies.
On Thursday, the newspaper raised the possibility that Madrazo cheated, noting that he finished the race in a jacket and tights, hardly breaking a sweat, while other runners looked spent in the humidity.
Luis Sanchez, a key leader in the rival Democratic Revolutionary Party, relished Madrazo's fall Tuesday.
"Unfortunately, in the party he belongs to, members grow up in an environment full of lies and tricks," Sanchez said in an interview. "This corruption enters the genes of the family that is his party. It permeates everything they do, even running a race."
Even his fellow party leaders seemed ready to run from him as quickly as he supposedly completed the course in Berlin.
Emilio Gamboa, the leader of his party's congressional delegation, released a statement Tuesday demanding that Madrazo explain himself. "We keep damaging the image of Mexicans, the vast majority of whom don't do this," he said.
Madrazo's aides would not comment Tuesday. The politician has been trying to remain a key figure within the party by promoting "The Treason," his book about the maneuvering and back-stabbing he says took place in last year's election.
Describing his political future, he wrote: "A man is his convictions, his desires and his dreams. That knows no end."
oavila@tribune.com |
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