What was claimed
A man won a women’s category of the London Marathon.
Our verdict
False. A biological male, Glenique Frank participated as a female in the event, but did not win.
Transgender athlete did not win a female category of the London Marathon
28 April 2023
A Facebook post falsely claims that a biological man has won a female category of the London Marathon after entering as a woman.
The post reads: “A MAN WINS THE WOMENS [sic] LONDON MARATHON (not the elite race - the second amateur cohort). Glenique Frank, 54, gushed about using “girl powers to cheat women athletes out of their rightful place.”
London Marathon runners can take part in elite, mass, virtual or wheelchair events. In addition to options to identify as male or female runners, this year’s mass event was the first to feature an option for those who identify as non-binary.
While it is true that a runner named Glenique Frank, who entered the event as a woman but is biologically male, participated on 23 April in the 50 to 54-year-old category, the only award issued was a participation medal.
Publicly available results for the race show Glenique Frank completed the course in just over four hours and eleven minutes, finishing in 583rd place by age category, 6,171st among all females and 21,617th overall, within the mass event.
The elite races in the London Marathon are subject to World Athletics rules, which exclude transgender women from elite female competition if they have gone through male puberty.
However the mass event, which saw 48,500 runners from all over the UK and around the world run through the capital, is not subject to World Athletics rules and offers open entry.
According to a Facebook post, Glenique Frank has previously entered marathons in New York and Tokyo as a male, but added: “I’m actually willing to give up my medal and finning [sic] place to the person that lost out.”
Image courtesy of Quino Al
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the biologically male runner who participated as a female did not win the event.