British endurance athlete William Goodge has been hit with cheating allegations after he broke the record for the fastest person ever to run across Australia by a whopping four days.
William Goodge, 32, born on April 30, 1994, is an ultra runner from Ampthill, 70km north of London in Bedfordshire, England.
He is a former model who used to play semi-pro rugby for the Ampthill Rugby Club in the third tier of English rugby and still has the physique to match, but he gave up after being knocked out too many times.
Goodge competed in the 257km Marathon des Sables across the Sahara Desert in 2022 and finished 11th at the Moab 240, a 240-mile (386km) ultra race in Utah.
In 2023, he completed the TransCon, a 5,109km cross-country run across the United States, from Huntington Beach, California, to New York in 55 days, making him the fastest Englishman ever to do so.
Moreover, he has raised thousands of dollars for charity, fundraising for the Cancer Council of Australia, as well as the UK-based Macmillan Cancer Support and the American Cancer Society.
William Goodge Denied The Cheating Allegation, Saying That He Had A GPS Tracker Switched On
In May 2025, English runner William Goodge broke the record for the fastest time to run across Australia.
He beat Australian Chris Turnbull’s previous record by a staggering four days, as he ran from Cottesloe Beach in Perth to Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach in just 35 days.
Goodge completed the 3,952-kilometre journey from west to east 12 days faster than notable Australian Nedd Brockmann did three years ago, with roughly 500 people waiting to greet him at the finish line.
However, running long distances is reliant on self-reporting through the data collected on a GPS watch, and some have accused Goodge of cheating by fudging his numbers.
Fellow English runner Williams Cockerell voiced concerns about Goodge’s heart rate data when he completed his run across the United States of America two years ago.
Goodge ran from Huntington Beach in California to New York in 55 days, making him the fastest Englishman ever to do so.
He was 13 days shy of American Pete Kostelnick’s record, but Cockerell believed Goodge’s heart rate was too low for the extreme distances he was running.
Cockerell even went to America to follow Goodge during his run and tried to catch him swapping his official GPS watch with different runners.
The pair ended up having an altercation on the side of the road, which was documented in an episode of his run on YouTube.
Moreover, the ABC reported that suspicions were increased by Strava data on day two of Goodge’s run across Australia when followers noticed that he had covered 400 meters in just 23 seconds.
Canadian Running Magazine also reported that Goodge’s data indicated he had run faster than 80km/h on occasion.
William has denied all the allegations, simply saying, “We had a tracker on, it was on me at all times,” following his Australian record. He added,
“People could come cheer me on or come for a run sometimes,”
William Goodge
In Case You Didn’t Know
- In 2018, William Goodge’s mother tragically passed away from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and amidst that grief, he turned to running.
- He attended the Redborne Upper School. Now, Goodge is the owner of the Puresport health and wellness brand.
- Although he is based in London, England, he is a native of Ampthill.
