The Dresden marathon held this weekend leaves us a scene at least surreal that has the Spanish athlete Camilo Santiago as the involuntary protagonist of the story.

According to the portal ‘Soy Corredor’ Santiago completed the test in 2:17:46. So far so good, but nevertheless this mark made the athlete achieve the national marathon record of Honduras.

The reason is that Santiago competed with the number of Honduran Iván Zarco after his clothes and the number with which he was going to compete had been stolen.

As a result of the controversy aroused by this situation and after World Athletics validated the brand achieved by Santiago but with the name of Zarco, Camilo Santiago himself has published his account of the story on his Twitter account that, for his interest, we reproduce in full below:

“Given the commotion caused this weekend by my participation in Dresden, I want to clarify and make clear what happened: First of all, I apologize for the mistakes made but at no time did he act with bad intentions.”

“I traveled to this marathon with Iván Zarco, with whom I had agreed to play a hare for some time. Iván was not clear about competing because he has plantar fasciitis. Having everything closed, travel, hotel, number and others, we decided to travel. I have another goal on April 11 and it is good for me to do a test and put on my bib.”

“When I finish warming up, my bag with the competition clothes, with the number and more material, disappears from the park where we left it. At that moment my nerves invade me and it is Iván who tells me to talk to the organization and to run with his bib, since he would not finally run due to the annoyance of the fascia. We talk to the organization and they give us the OK. We have already claimed that result in the official classification.”

“Maybe my mistake was finishing the marathon and I should have stopped earlier, maybe. Maybe my mistake was running with another number, maybe. Maybe my mistake was being naive, maybe. But those of you who know me know that there is no bad intention in all this. And just the illusion of being able to compete and after the trip and so on, I didn’t think about the consequences. I simply put on his clothes and bib number as my bag disappeared 30 minutes after departure. In any case, I apologize for the inconvenience I have caused and I am learning a new lesson.”

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