A content creator who went viral for high-fiving Ariana Grande near the finish line of the New York City Marathon has been exposed as someone who never actually registered for the race, after he ran under a counterfeit version of a French banking executive's bib number. Mike Clarke entered the marathon using a fraudulent copy of bib number 4207, which belonged to Nicolas Bourot, a chief security officer for Groupe BPCE who had waited years for his own shot at the race.
A Stolen Number, A Viral Moment
Clarke used the counterfeit bib to run the full course and stage his high-five with Ariana Grande near the finish line, according to the New York Post. He later posted social media videos documenting his run, including footage of the celebrity moment that helped the stunt take off online. In a since-deleted YouTube video, Clarke admitted he was not officially registered for the race, the outlet reported.
Clarke told the Post he chose bib number 4207 because it was connected to a deceased friend, saying that friend had hoped to run the World Marathon Majors and New York by 2028. He claimed the counterfeit bib let him complete the full 26.2-mile course despite heightened security at the start lines, and said he had no idea the number was tied to an actual registered runner. After the race, Clarke gave his marathon medal to a child, per the same report.
The Real Bib Holder Notices Something Off
Bourot discovered the theft of his identity only after spotting Clarke wearing his number in the marathon's photo gallery. Fearing that a duplicate bib on the course could have skewed his own results, he checked his race statistics and confirmed his time of 3:23:23 was accurate, the report states. Bourot had waited ten years to gain entry into the race, finally securing a spot in the 50th-anniversary running of the marathon after previously completing ten marathons. His wife and friends had given him plane tickets, hotel stays and other gifts tied to both the race and his 50th birthday, according to the Post. Bourot belongs to the 139-year-old Sam Paris 12 running club in France.
NYRR Responds With a Ban
New York Road Runners banned Clarke from next year's race after receiving multiple reports about his counterfeit bib, the Post reported. An NYRR spokesperson said fraudulent event entries jeopardize everyone's safety and undermine running and its community. The seed reporting notes that NYRR has not assigned dedicated bandit catchers for several years.
A Known Problem on Marathon Courses
Clarke's stunt fits into a pattern that race organizers and independent investigators have tracked for years. Organizers estimate that hundreds of people participate in major marathons annually using fabricated or duplicate bibs, or no bibs at all, according to Canadian Running Magazine. The outlet also reported that almost a dozen members of a New Jersey running group used forged bibs or no bibs to run the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon for free, and that NYRR confirmed no bib numbers in the 77,000-78,000 range were even issued that year. A viral video from the 2024 race showed an official removing nearly a dozen bibless runners from the course near the 40-kilometre mark in Central Park, per the same outlet.
The practice of lifting a bib number from someone's social media, duplicating it, and using it to slip into a race without registering has a longer history still. A 2017 Wired report found that of the more than 50,000 runners who hit the starting line at the NYC Marathon each year, the number of bandits typically never exceeded 50. That same reporting described how, after the 2014 Boston Marathon, runner Kara Bonneau found race photographs showing four different people wearing her bib number, 14285, according to Wired. Separate case files from Marathon Investigation describe at least two running crews that copied bibs for the 2016 NYC Marathon, and another instance in which a runner using bib number 64709 appeared in preliminary results with a 3:37:12 finish and second place in the W60-64 age group before being disqualified and having the results adjusted.
Why Bib Fraud Matters Beyond Bragging Rights
Unauthorized bib use does more than distort who technically crossed a finish line first — it can also make it harder for medical personnel to correctly identify a runner during an emergency, Canadian Running Magazine has reported separately. The issue has drawn fresh scrutiny amid a broader wave of online sleuthing into marathon results. A year ago, the Australia-based Instagram account Official Marathon Time Integrity Unit was created specifically to flag discrepancies between runners' claimed times and their official results, according to The Athletic, which argues that official chip times remain the only true measure of a race performance even as it draws a distinction between GPS tracking errors and deliberate manipulation. That same reporting described a Chinese fitness influencer who was disqualified from the Berlin Marathon, and subsequently dropped by sponsor Brooks China, after photos surfaced showing her riding on the back of a bike mid-race despite a personal-best finish time of 4:53:46.
