Female runner pulled from race due to death threats

[InflagranteDelicto]

Had this pop up on my social media this morning, although through a different news site initially: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2026/01/14/british-woman-removed-from-ultramarathon-beheading-threat/

Basically, Sarah Porter does a lot of fundraising to help women and girls, on this occasion in Afghanistan, and the organisers have had to pull her from the race because of the threats. It's not a race for the weak either, I'd warrant 99% of the ones making the threats would not be physically or mentally able to take on such an event of endurance.

It makes me so angry that she's been put in such a position but also the barriers these men, and I'd bet it's men, are putting up to stop her helping other women. And if we don't talk about how unfair it is, they get away with their behaviour.

Archive link here: archive.ph/oKEVs

So the Police were contacted. I assume the hunt is now on to find these thugs? Doesn't elaborate in either The Telegrah or the Giardian.

This has been huge news for the winter spine race and there’s been a massive amount of donations to her fundraising page. Eoin Keith has been posting about it on FB. I tried to link but it’s been immediately deleted

Fundraising link is embedded in the article in the OP.

I hadn't looked at her go fund me since this morning, it's really grown which is brilliant news. I have so much admiration for the people taking part, it's such a challenge.

Given their recent successes in identifying the source of even online threats, I hope the police manage to arrest someone very quickly.

Other ultras are looking at giving her a spot now.

Jesus wept. I hope every bloke, & it will be blokes, making those threats gets treatment-resistant Fournier's gangrene.

As modern day curses go, this is fairly genius.

That’s awful. FFS.

That's awful. There's a link to the go fund me at the bottom of the Telegraph article.

Wow she is incredible!

Good for her

So men cause the problem and the solution is to punish the woman by banning her from racing. Wow.

I don’t understand. Did the threats start when the tracker was disabled? Was the tracker disabled as part of the intimidation?

What the fuck is wrong with these men?

I wonder who "They" are, the ones threatening her?

🙏 will someone with acces please archive? 💐

They have some pretty specific threats to her life. What other option do they have though? The race passes through pretty remote parts of the UK. It's not like they can have a car follow her or some police officers accompany her.

This part is baffling me. There must be some details they are not releasing to the press. A woman running a marathon for charity is hardly controversial. Why was she singled out in this way?

I think there might be clues in the shape of the cause she was funding.

As @Erin1975 says it's not any old street marathon, it's a very long distance cross country multi hour (multi? Day event) with the runners out in the back of beyond but with their position visible on-line to pretty much anyone who cared to look at the appropriate website(s).

Archive here:

https://archive.is/0BJ7o

For future ref - if you copy-paste the original article url into the archive.is website, you can either find archive versions or archive a version yourself (depending on where you paste the url - there are two options).

Presumably since she was running for women and girls in Afghanistan, the men threatening her are those who don't believe women and girls should have human rights and anyone highlighting the human rights abuses against women and girls in Afghanistan is therefore a target?

I hope the police do something to actually arrest and charge them. It is very frightening if they're allowed to get away with it.

I'm so glad this is finally getting some attention. My aunty knows and runs with this lady. The threats were specific and a very real risk, purely because a woman is trying to raise money for a cause that she believes in?! What kind of world are we living in. So much training effort and organisation takes place for these ultra marathons and it was just taken away due to others actions. It's disgusting.

I hope those who threatened this amazing woman get what they deserve.
Clearly they are misogynistic nasty men who think violence to women, even killing them, is absolutely ok.
What the hell goes through their vile minds. Absolute monsters.
I am so angry.
Best thing I can do is donate today and metaphorically put 2 fingers up to the bastards.

On the Telegraph page theres a link to a running podcast where she talks about (mostly running) but also her situation. From about 14-15 mins in she talks about the security issues.

She’s a very brave woman!

She has some technology businesses which led her to work with women and girls in low to middle income countries including Afghanistan. As a result of this work she has a permanent body guard, security advisers s as be a security dog! She has received threats for many years so entered the race with all this having been discussed with organisers.

Security services were/are aware and investigating - but she said mostly the threats are idle. It’s just that the threats to behead her during the race was all new and risky for the race organisers. At first they switched off her tracker so that no one could gps locate her via the web and when she got to a checkpoint they told her she had to withdraw. That was 6 hours in.

She chose to run in her own name and had sponsors following her progress. They were raising money to build a girls school and £100k was contingent on her finishing the race. Many sponsors (some in The Middle East) had organised watching parties to follow her progress live via her race tracker on the internet.

They had discussed pseudonyms but she decided that would have reduced her awareness raising. In the podcast she said more people needed to know what was happening to women and girls in the world. In Afghanistan girls are sold off to Talibam fighters as young as 7 and are pregnant by 9.

I know it’s bad she didn’t get to finish but I hope the shocking nature of these threats results in someone being brought to justice for this. And that she gets far wider publicity than she ever otherwise would.

What sort of men (because I think im 95% vertex it will be) threaten a woman for helping stop the rape, slavery and trafficking of young women. What’s wrong with these people?

The podcast also talks about the safety issues of these races and their trackers for women solo and often overnight in isolated locations. Location being broadcast publicly over the internet. Like the Strava effect. Sounds fabulous and works great on social media but actually terrible for safeguarding