Which of course it does. It’s just that this year, if reports are to be believed, more than 11,000 of the 30,000 field chose to transcend running the full distance, using cars, bikes, and public transport for significant parts of the race.

Getting past that isn’t going to be easy for an event that is currently one of 38 holding World Athletics Gold Label status, the second-highest level of prestige for such events.

In a statement sent to insidethegames, a World Athletics spokesperson said: "It is always disappointing to hear that people choose to cheat in our sport, such as the cheating that occurred in the mass race at the Mexico City Marathon on August 27.

"However, many race organisers use mass timing detection systems in today’s races and their effectiveness can be seen with the race organisers of this event who had the proper checkpoints in place, and have taken appropriate action by swiftly disqualifying all athletes who chose to cheat."

Since the initial report set in motion a wave of incredulity around the sporting world, INDEPORTE - the official Mexico City sports institute - has put out its own statement insisting the figure of those who did not run the whole the marathon, for whatever reason, was just over 2,000.

It remains unclear whether this figure refers to those who deliberately cheated or those who were injured but were seeking a participation medal.

Further evidence from INDEPORTE may be forthcoming at the end of this week. Meanwhile Carlos Ochoa, communications coordinator for the organisers, told CNN that the numbers being widely reported in media are "fake news".

Intriguingly, Robert Madrazo, an unsuccessful Mexican Presidential candidate in 2006, has criticised the report of mass cheating, insisting that all were innocent.

"Your programme should know that not everyone who signs up for a marathon intends to finish it; many take advantage of the route and logistical support for their training," Madrazo wrote on X. 

"I know this because I have participated in 65 marathons."

It was Madrazo’s participation in one particular marathon, the Berlin marathon of 2007, which earned him much scorn and ridicule in his home country.

Sporting a bright-red jacket, a cap and long tights, the 55-year-old politician was photographed with his arms aloft and beaming after he broke through the finish line in what appeared to be a record for his age group.

But race organisers later stripped him of the title after finding he did not run a nine-mile (15 km) stretch of the course.

Ah well. While the arguments continue, it can at least be noted that the Mexico City race has been down this shortened road before.

In 2017, just under 6,000 runners were disqualified for cheating, while 3,000 were similarly punished in 2018.

After the 2017 edition, then race director Javier Carvallo told ESPN that 5,806 runners were disqualified after they were found to have cut sections of the course.

"All of the people who were disqualified from the race were found to have crossed the finish line in a fraudulent manner," Carvallo said. 

"Most cases, we found, was course-cutting via the skipping of checkpoints."

Now I am no statistician, but this is surely a problem getting worse rather than better. Even in the best-case scenario it is a problem that has not gone away.

The initial report of the latest manifestation of Mexico City mass mendacity - sorry, just had to write that - appeared in the Spanish newspaper Marca, which said that, according to an investigation after the event on August 27, the disqualified runners had missed checkpoints placed every five kilometres along the 42.195-km course.

"The Mexico City Sports Institute informs that it will proceed to identify those cases in which participants of the XL Mexico City Marathon Telcel 2023 have demonstrated an unsportsmanlike attitude during the event and will invalidate their registration times," race organisers said, in a statement to Marca.

"This great event not only represents an outstanding celebration for all the inhabitants of the capital, but also an occasion to reaffirm the transcendental values of sport," the statement continued.

The Mexico course dodgers - however many they may turn out to be - were following in a great Olympic tradition, albeit on a greatly enlarged scale.

At the first modern Olympics of 1896, in Athens, home runner Spyridon Belokas appeared briefly to have completed a Greek clean sweep behind the now-legendary winner Spyridon Louis until it was found he had ridden in a carriage for a section of the race, having supposedly dropped out. He was disqualified after a protest from the fourth-place finisher Gyula Kellner, who moved up one place.

At the 1904 Olympics in St Louis, the apparent victory of home runner Fred Lorz swiftly emerged as invalid. It turned out that he had exhausted himself by the nine-mile mark and covered the next 11 miles in his manager’s car before making his way back on foot to the Olympic Stadium and then - why not!? -  deciding to run in and break the finishing line.

After spectators claimed he had not run the entire race, Lorz was confronted by furious officials and admitted his deception, claiming he had only been joking.

Unsurprisingly, this excuse did not prevent him being banned for life by the Amateur Athletic Union. Surprisingly, he was reinstated after a year after it was found that he had not intended to defraud.

Lorz then legitimately won the Boston Marathon in 1905 with a time of 2hr 8min 25sec. The word "redemption" is slackly used in sports reporting nowadays; but this was a redemption.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, race leader Frank Shorter of the United States entered the stadium to a puzzling reception of boos and whistles. What Shorter didn’t realise at the time was that this opprobrium was directed at the young West German running ahead of him who had been first to enter the stadium and had briefly convinced his home crowd that he was the winner before the pfennig - pre-Euro days, these - began to drop.

There was similar puzzlement at the 1980 Boston marathon when an unknown female came home to set a course record. It was soon discovered that Rosie Ruiz - for it was she - had run only the last half-mile of the race, and her medal and result were revoked. It later transpired that she had earned her qualifying time for Boston at the New York City marathon, where she covered most of the course on the subway.

In 1993, Herman Matthee was stripped of his gold medal from the 55-mile Comrades ultra-marathon in South Africa after video evidence showed he had ridden in a taxi for almost twenty-five miles of the route. History does not record whether, like Lorz, Matthee claimed it was all a prank…

Long ago in a faraway land, I was doing midweek football training with Bishop’s Stortford Swifts FC under floodlights, and a team-mate, John, who was also a fireman, told one of our group not to cut the corners as we lapped the field. "You’re cheating yourself," he said. 

Who knows whether it made a blind bit of difference to the player he was talking to? But it made sense to me.

Of course, alternative sporting moralities are available.

How about introducing an Open To Interpretation category for those who want to cross the finish line in a certain time?

Just turn up at the specially created "Finish" in full kit, ask for your desired time to be shown, get a picture as you cross the line and post it on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.  

Job done - and you hardly need to run a step.

Cars, bikes and public transport. You call it cheating. I call it the new triathlon. Let’s go with the flow on this and promote it as a new strand within the marathon day. Remember - full marks for ingenuity!

Meanwhile a question: If you crash a car or fall off a bike while cutting out part of a marathon route, does it count as a running injury?