Strava has deleted millions of race records after amateur athletes were caught cheating to climb up its internal leaderboards. The popular exercise app, which is used to record runs, cycles and other exercises, has culled 3.5million 'suspicious' activities from its database. Strava, which is used by around 180million people worldwide, offers virtual trophies and ranks users on leaderboards according to their times. However, the cheating has allowed amateur athletes to be placed higher than they should be. Claiming he has been a Strava 'mule' for more than a year, the runner said: 'So, basically someone will pay me to run a race with their Strava account on my phone.'

Source: The Times February 07, 2026 15:11 UTC