Molly-Mae Hague was every inch the proud girlfriend when she surprised Tommy Fury at the finish line of his 100km triathlon in the French Riviera.
But the celebrations, which also involved their two-year-old daughter Bambi, quickly became overshadowed by shocking claims that the sportsman – a boxer by trade – had cheated. The gruelling challenge comprised a 2km swim, an 80km bike leg and an 18km run to the finish, but official race results appear to show that Tommy, 26, ‘DNF’ [did not finish], with his bike splits showcasing that he was not logged past the 48km mark.
Tommy has not responded to the allegations, but his Instagram post gushing about his achievement – ‘100km triathlon on days 10 training… completed’ – has been flooded with angry comments. One read, ‘Makes me sick when people like you cheapen the hard work of others, didn’t do the full swim, nor the full bike – this should be deleted as you’ve cheated.’
A spokesperson for the race confirmed that despite his claim to have ‘completed’ the triathlon, Tommy was among athletes who missed the bike cut-off times before the roads had to be reopened, so could not finish that leg of the course.
And heat has been told that the scandal has left Molly-Mae, 26, in despair, especially as she and Tommy had been working hard at giving their relationship a second shot following their split last summer.
‘Molly is fuming at Tommy. She’s told friends that she's done covering up his mistakes and cleaning up after his messes. Tommy has no idea how his actions have undone so much good work. Over the past year, she’s working hard on a carefully managed relationship glow-up and rebuilding their following and she’s beside herself at how quickly he could have ruined it. How does he thinks this reflects on them as a couple if people are branding him a cheat?
Tommy – who is the brother of former heavyweight boxing champion Tyson – also made headlines just days later for his finishing sprint during the Great North Run, after TikTok videos captured him shoving fellow runners out of the way.
One social media user captioned the moment, ‘Tommy Fury takes no prisoners’, but others blasted, ‘He needs to learn running etiquette as no one behaves that way,’ and another said, ‘Terrible sportsmanship.’
An undeterred Tommy still took to Instagram to proudly document the half marathon. Sharing a screenshot of his time – one hour and 34 minutes – he wrote, ‘Really surprised myself with this time, I was hoping for one hour forty but ended up smashing that time!’
Meanwhile, the runner who bore the brunt of Tommy’s push later said, ‘I felt this hand on my shoulder which pushed me to the side for him to run through. I was a bit upset and thought that’s not on – it’s not really race etiquette.’
And we’re told that this second sporting controversy also landed him in hot water with Molly-Mae, whom he first met on Love Island in 2019.
‘Molly asked Tommy where the sportsmanship is in knocking people over, but he just found it funny, telling her that’s what he does for a living. It feels like the same story with a different narrative – Molly’s feeling hurt by his actions. He can't grasp what he's done wrong and how his actions have opened up a can of worms.’
The source continues, ‘Tommy’s defence is that it's sport and it's competitive. He says he wasn’t barging people out the way, he was in it to win it. Molly has told friends he's an idiot – he only seems to focused on one thing: himself, especially as it was a charity run, too.’
While Tommy shared a congratulatory message to Molly-Mae following her win at the National TV Awards for her Amazon show Behind It All, we’re told that his (not-so) sporting antics are still at the forefront of her mind.
The source adds, ‘The worst thing is the cheating allegations. Her stomach is in knots over what he’ll do next.’