I’ve written a fair amount about children of private school privilege and their belief that the rules don’t apply to them, most notably during the Two Oceans half marathon BrahGate scandal.
As a quick recap, two Bishops’ old boys illegally ran the race in banditted bibs that they had obtained from female entrants. They ran times fast enough to crack the Top 10 for women thus creating chaos, controversy and stealing a special moment from the actual Top 10 female athletes.
READ MORE: Karin-Mari’s Story (How Two Morons Stole her Special Moment)
Two’s company and three’s a crowd. Another prominent Bishops’ old boy, Morgan Newman (a former Stormers rugby player and current Good Hope FM DJ), was found not only to have run in a woman’s race number but also to have doctored the race bib by ‘arts and crafting’ his name in the same font and colour to hide his deceit.
READ MORE: Good Hope DJ & former Stormer is latest BrahGate Bandit
The two men finishing as Top 10 ladies at Two Oceans were extensively covered on local and international news – it even made it as far as CNN, Al Jazeera and Fox News. I honestly thought it would be a long time before I was writing about men running in women’s race numbers again but sadly the extensive coverage of the braless brah saga was not sufficient publicity to penetrate the protective bubble of private school privilege.
READ MORE: Two Oceans 2026: Two Top 10 “Ladies” Disqualified as Topless Photos Emerge Online
I have a busy inbox and many keen sources of information but Brad Smart’s banditry at this year’s Cape Town Marathon took a few months to surface. I received the following message from a source towards the end of August:
“Trust you’re doing well. You’ve got me hooked on a new hobby — weeding out bib thieves, especially influencers and their associates.
Here’s my latest find: @rachelannbeaton’s latest squeeze, @bradsmart21, allegedly ran the Cape Town Marathon wearing someone else’s race number. His buddy on the right appears to have done the same, wearing a female runner’s number.
Sadly, it seems like the Cape Town Marathon is turning a blind eye to this kind of behaviour.”
Then, immediately after this year’s Gun Run half marathon, I received several tipoffs that Smart had banditted there as well. Here’s one example:
“I have a new story for you. Brah gate 3 the Gun Run chapter.
Guy called Brad Smart (or not so smart). He’s the new love interest / boyfriend of a big running influencer on the Cape Town scene. Rachel Beaton aka the big dog.
Seems to have run the Gun Run half as a female. Linked to the usual suspects and Running Late run crew in Cape Town.”
With another serial bandit on the loose, I reluctantly decided it was necessary to pen another braless brah article…
At Gun Run, Smart ran in the number of Emma Underwood and was seeded in F batch. However, F batch was not good enough for Smart so our lovelorn puppy batch jumped all the way forward to A so that he could start together with his darling, ‘Big Dog’ Beaton. I suppose when you break one rule, you might as well break them all.
I did send Beaton a set of questions including “Based on the above, it would be impossible for you not to know that Smart was both batch jumping and banditting. This would indicate that you are complicit in the cheating. Would you agree?” But for once the Big Dog lost her bark. She likes to use the catchphrase “When does it get hard?” – and it appears that the answer to this question is ‘when you are caught out being complicit in cheating’.
That is of course assuming that the “When does it get hard?” mantra is not merely a desperate attempt to get an endorsement deal from Viagra because Beaton is fishing in the wrong pond. It would be truly ironic indeed if the Big Dog struggled to find her bone.
Whilst neither Smart nor Beaton responded to my questions, there were some mitigating circumstances for the cheating. Beaton’s former lover and eventual race winner, Adam Lipschitz, was lining up at the front and Smart may have wanted to ensure that no old flames were reignited as pre-race nerves smouldered on the start line.
Further investigation revealed that Smart banditted the previous Gun Run in 2025 as Kara Bredell in race number 2442.
Cape Town Marathon 2024 also saw Smart running as a woman in the number of Kayla Burbidge.
While looking at his Instagram feed, I noticed that he was wearing a Two Oceans 2025 ultra marathon shirt*. However, a look at his Two Oceans history shows that he has never run the ultra marathon and therefore banditted that or is pulling a Toni Cavanagh-style fashion faux pas by wearing the shirt for a race he has not run. Incidentally, Smart’s 2022 Two Oceans half marathon is his only known legitimate South African race result.
* Smart was also wearing the Two Oceans ultra marathon shirt during his 2025 Gun Run banditry.
With regards Cape Town Marathon 2026, I did my civic duty and notified the CTM organising team that I’d found two more cheats at their race. Whilst Comrades and Two Oceans have taken a zero tolerance to cheating approach, Cape Town Marathon has opted for a zero repercussions for cheating policy. I reported the two cheats on 27 August but they are still listed as valid finishers on the official results list. It is assumed that this is because some of CTM’s staff have a close relationship with several of the cheats and taking action against them would violate Cape Town’s stringent ‘cool kids code’.
READ MORE: Doubling Down on Integrity: A Question for Kendra Stewart
Cape Town Marathon 2026 is the only known instance where our ladies’ man has run as a male bandit, in this case as Josh Herd in race number 3480. Interestingly, on social media, Smart proudly displayed his Strava moving time of 3:44 rather than his official race result of 3:46:39.
The guy on the right of the CTM 2026 photo at the top of the article is a close friend of Smart’s called Thomas Gunning who ran CTM in the race number of Christie Jo Mackenzie.
Mackenzie is a South African international canoeist and has won four Dusi Canoe Marathon women’s K1 titles.
As such Mackenzie should be well versed in competitive etiquette and the correct application of competition rules. Whilst I don’t know the circumstances around Gunning getting Mackenzie’s race number as she also gave me radio silence, Mackenzie married a Wade Gunning earlier this year so I assume the race number was traded on the family WhatsApp group.
Thomas Gunning appears to be another prolific bib bandit, braless brah and partner in crime of Smart – the two are pictured together after Gun Run 2025 where he ran in race number 10463 belonging to Tiaan Snel. Gunning also batch jumped from J to C that year.
No braless brah article is complete without a background check of Brad Smart’s schooling. It was no surprise to find that some attribution for Smart’s “rules don’t apply to me” attitude can be traced back to a privileged private school education – in this case at Kearsney College in KwaZulu Natal.
During the original braless brah saga when the second brah was outed, many members of the private school patriarchy came out in support of their outed cheat. At the time, I was bemused at the number of Kearsney alumni who appeared to endorse cheating, apparently this even included a former head boy of the school. It makes more sense now.
Ironically, considering his inability to get a legal entry for popular races, Smart was the co-founder and CEO of a procurement company called SupplierAdvisor and was featured as “Entrepreneur of the Month” on 15 April 2024 on the Stellenbosch Network.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Smart has now jumped onto the AI bandwagon with a new co-founding gig at a company called SideKwest. The new company delivers “Custom Software & AI Solutions” and promises to “deliver engineering depth over agency polish.” Considering the propensity for AI to hallucinate and appropriate other people’s content, I guess this is an entirely appropriate career move.
There’s more to come. Smart was not the only cheat at Gun Run 2026. Another article will follow on general cheating and gross entitlement.
Disclaimer: Before I get accused of being a private schoolist, I would disclose that I spent some (but fortunately not all) of my formative education years within the private schooling system. I have nothing against privately educated people except when they act all entitled and think that the rules don’t apply to them. I would also like to pre-empt the expected forthcoming animosity from the cool kids, delta males and pick-me girls by stating that I can’t be private schoolist because some of my best friends went to Bishops.
READ MORE: The Running Moan: Why Bib Banditting is Wrong
Afterword: Unanswered Questions
Below are the unanswered right of reply questions sent to Brad Smart, Rachel Beaton and Thomas Gunning. Where it was possible to track them down on social media, right of replies were also sent to those who gave their numbers to Smart and Gunning. No replies were received to any of these either.
God’s work. Bravo!
Great work.
Hope the running community is given the necessary right of reply to this matter.
Thanks for the article and the work you do. It’s always interesting how many people get evasive or even scared to call out, wrongful behavior, when people seem to be popular or in the limelight. Little transgressions leads to bigger transgressions.
“…you can almost see his vulva” had me rolling 😀
Great work on exposing them.
What I cannot fathom is why not just enter these races yourself.
Thanks for the investigations and the commentary @RunningMan. Appreciate the witty, funny side of it.
These people are really dumb and entitled to think it’s not wrong to act that way.
Anyways I hope one day they will be more logical or honest with themselves and appreciate the fact that they have decent mobility.
These plenty of honorable people and decent runners that can only dream about their mobility, but instead are face with health issues etc.
Please bib bandits and batch jumpers, stop your despicable crapp.
Great piece, Stuart. Years of borrowed bibs isn’t a one-off, it’s a loyalty scheme, and they keep adding members.
Wearing someone else’s bib is identity theft with a timing chip. Batch jumping is cutting the queue at Woolies, but sweatier.
“When does it get hard?” Probably when your boyfriend keeps turning up in other women’s bib numbers. 😅
Rachel, big platform, big catchphrase, and then a few questions land in your inbox and the Big Dog goes quiet? Silence is an endorsement.
And CTM, if you won’t fix the results when cheating is reported, you’re telling honest runners the rules are a suggestion. Let the rest of us keep believing a finish line means something.
I would never run in someone else’s bib…unless it was a legitimated sub…i’d rather pass if not🤪 i see people still asking for subs or giving away their race entries even after subs are closed..lively..i see it happens all the time😱
I dont have much to say about him wearing a race tshirt for a race u have not run(not that i would anyway, would not sit right with myself😂)…coz everyone can buy afterward most of the races tshirts these days without having to run the race🤷left over stocks. But the race bib bandit story..its not on..rules are rules and it applies to all!! And its unfair towards the rest of the runners..especially the ones who didnt get an entry but accepted it and wait for the nxt one…thanks for exposing these peoples Stuart💪 they should be dealt with🤷 good job👌
Hi Stuart, Can you please explain how the ballot systems for both Two Oceans and Comrades work. Covering: How runners are selected and allocated entries. The criteria to determine eligibility and selection. Any exclusions,preferences, or priority categories within the ballot system.Potential biases, limitations, or unintended consequences of the process. Whether the system provide equal opportunities for all runners, and any disadvantages afforded to particular groups. It would be helpful if the article included a balanced discussion on the fairness, transparency, and effectiveness of the ballot systems from a runner’s perspective.
These cheats should be banned from the sport for life !!
Even if one is able and willing to put aside the rules and ethics of road running to excuse bib banditry, one huge concern remains, that should something go wrong on race day and a bib bandit ends up needing critical medical attention, there is the possibility that the bib bandit may be treated incorrectly, due to the wrong info being on record for the person lying on the stretcher or gurney.
I have heard a horror story that this actually happened at the Two Oceans Half Marathon a few years ago, and the medical treatment that was just about to be administered could have killed the patient. Thankfully, the patient regained consciousness just in time to admit he was somebody else, and that he was actually allergic to the medication about to be administered.
On that note, spare a moment’s thought for the doctors and nurses who could have unwittingly killed their patient that day, due to the patient’s own deceit!
Point is, these bib bandits may think they’re doing no harm, but someday this behaviour could literally kill them. That’s serious food for thought to try convince them to stop doing this.
I read this whole article out loud to my husband. It was hilarious. The question I have though, is why would someone be a serial bib bandit? Is it really that hard to buy a legit entry or to get a legit sub? As a regular runner I have also been left out of a ballot and managed to get a legit sub. What would the benefits of serial bib banditting be?
Exactly my question as well.
Join a legitimate running club, enter races on time and build up you own legacy. Posting on the ‘gram doesn’t count as results.
my usual gripe.
GunRun subs closed on 9 august, 5 weeks before the race date of 13 September.
Race numbers didn’t include a personal name, they could have been subbed the day before.
Life happens, and when entries sell out months in advance and very quickly – people enter without really doing the planning to ensure they will do the event.
By having inflexible subs processes race organisers are feeding unallowed race numbers into their own system.
In defence of the bib cheats, who are male, and run with a female runners bib, you must remember that we live in very mixed up times these days, where a runner who was assigned as being male at birth, may well identify as female, hence the need to run in a female running bib. By the same rule, he/she would identify as elite, and would self promote from batch F to batch A.
We should all do the same, and cause utter chaos, wouldn’t that be fun?
Thank you for again exposing bib bandits. (Although I suspect it may “get hard” when they see their name/s in print).
CAPE TOWN MARATHON. You appear to have been captured based on your apparent tacit condonation of cheating. A certain political party must be very proud of you.
It would be very embarrassing if the CAPE TOWN MARATHON was now to be removed from the list of WMM – based on the apparent silence regarding plain cheating.
Running Mann – thank you for your wide variety of articles (including this one).