This Facebook post with a screenshot of an article purporting that the World Athletics has introduced a new marathon rule to award medals to ‘the best non-East African runners’ is FALSE.

World Athletics was formerly known as the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

The screenshot is accompanied by a post that reads in part, “I told you world athletics is against African athletes. The non-east Africans will then get higher prize money than the east Africans. Records will be paid twice…the east african records and the non- east african records (sic).”

The post adds, “Solution: East africa (sic) to organise a mega marathon that pays 3 or 4 times more than what the world athletics can pay. Then have our own records.”

The headline of the article in question reads, “​​New Marathon Rule: Medals For The Best Non-East African Runners.”

According to the article, the World Athletics president Sebastian Coe’s explanation for the new rule is “to encourage diversity and inclusivity in our sport, and we recognize that East African runners have a natural advantage over others due to their genetic makeup, lifestyle, and training environment. We hope that by giving medals to the best non-East African runners, we can motivate them to improve their performance and challenge the East African supremacy.”

There is no information about the alleged rule change on the organisation’s official social media platforms or website.

A Google keyword search for the article’s headline traced its origin to a satirical website called PostaMate. The satirical article was published on 8 October 2023 in the wake of Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum winning the Chicago Marathon.

The website’s tagline, visible on its logo, reads, “Home of Satire and Sarcasm”.

The description in the “About” section of the site also confirms that its content is not meant to be taken seriously.

It reads: “PostaMate started as signal newsletter in the year 1492 in the Congo Basin, where it would send a daily smoke signal broadcast to the entire region” and that “Our diverse team of contributors come from three planets. Four of them have over 70 years of experience each and two are sitting presidents in Asia.”

PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post with a screenshot of an article purporting that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), now known as World Athletics, has introduced a new marathon rule to award medals to ‘the best non-East African runners’, and finds it to be FALSE.

This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.

By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.

Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.

This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker Peris Gachahi and edited by PesaCheck Senior Copy Editor Cédrick Irakoze.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.

PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.

PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.