A fitness influencer has been banned for life from the New York City Marathon after he ran the race alongside his own video crew.
Texas influencer Matthew Choi was disqualified and barred from competing in any future competitions after he "ran with the assistance of two unauthorized people riding the course on electric bicycles, obstructing runners," the New York Road Runners, who organizes the marathon, said in a statement obtained by Runner's World.
On Tuesday, Choi posted a video responding to the backlash from runners, calling his actions "selfish" and saying that he accepted NYRR's ban.
"I f***ed up," Choi said in the video. "I was selfish on Sunday to have my brother and my videographer follow me around the course on e-bikes, and it had serious consequences. With the New York City Marathon being about everyone else and about the community, I made it about myself. And for anyone I impacted, I'm sorry. To be clear, this was 100% on me."
The 29-year-old, who posts running content online, shared several videos about his experience at the marathon, which were littered with comments from users accusing Choi of disrupting other runners' experiences.
"How do you justify having a film crew on bikes on the race course, cutting runners off?" one user commented on Instagram.
"Respectfully, I feel like this was quite dangerous to the other runners out there. Have you ever fallen on a run? Hurts pretty bad and you go down hard. Imagine getting clipped by an e-bike and falling. Could've caused a very serious injury," another user wrote.
"I honestly don't understand why you need a film crew to film you while running a marathon. You've completely lost touch with reality. It's everyone's race and you're clearly impacting others by doing that. Film yourself like the rest of us normal content creators, have your people that are cheering for you film you as you run by them. But keep the crew off the course," fellow running influencer @runningfitkristen commented.
Choi's final time for the marathon was 2:57:15. He finished about 50 minutes after the men's race winner, Abdi Nageeye, as reported by the Associated Press.
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