By now most in the high school running community have probably heard the story about a runner, Terry Varicelly of Union City High School, DQ'd for cheating in races reported on MileSplit earlier this weekend.
Now that this has occurred multiple times news of the incident has reached Union City's Athletic Director Joseph Ferrante as well as a few other school officials. After speaking with Bill Bruno of the NJSIAA on Tuesday it was found that while Varicelly is a student at the high school he is not currently part of the cross country team or any of the school's sports teams for that matter.
Jim Lambert of NJ.com reached out to Ferrante for comment in an article earlier today. "He's a student with us, but he's not participating in any athletic sports for us,'' said Ferrante. "When he attends these events to the best of our knowledge he's doing so unattached.''
When asked if there will be disciplinary action coming Varicelly's way Ferrante noted no formal reports from meet officials had been submitted, "Right now we can't discipline based off of hearsay.''
To recap what has been happening, Union City high school senior Terry Varicelly has been caught cutting multiple races this season. The first report came during the October Manhattan Invitational when he hopped into a race with about 600 meters to go, seen below wearing the black shorts and singlet. Most recently he was exposed, through video and timing evidence, cutting the course at the NXN Northeast regional this past weekend.
NXN Northeast meet management have officially removed him from the regional meet's results after finding he had no split times from race check points and was not visible in any race footage other than the finish.
To see for yourself watch the NXN Northeast race below, this is where it was first realized he cut the course once again. Varicelly finishes at 12:38 in the video wearing a Nike hat, however up to that view point he was never seen among the other competitors during the race. This video and similar findings in the photo albums were enough evidence to bring the possible disqualification to meet management as well as for the timers to take a second look. When they did it was found that Viracelly's chip had no split time at the 1.5 mile mark like the rest of the athletes.
This isn't the first season something like this has happened either. Video from the Armory Youth Championships during the 2016 indoor season shows Varicelly apparently drop out of an 800 meter race just to join back in and come across the finish among the leaders.
You can watch that race here, keep an eye on number 11 in the red top at the 1:15 mark in the video as he drops off the pace and track. Then watch as he steps back on the track at the 1:55 mark to eventually finish with a time of 2:05.13, and yes that made it into the official results.
As more information about this story arises we will update this article accordingly.
---