Fast Women: Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09 marathon was likely too good to be true
Gudaf Tsegay, Jessica Hull, Sinclaire Johnson, and others set national records in London.
Issue 360, sponsored by Omius
Ruth Chepngetich has been provisionally banned, but her 2:09 marathon world record will probably stand
Here we go again.
On Thursday, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced that they’ve provisionally suspended Kenya’s Ruth Chepngetich, who tested positive for Hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) on March 14. At last October’s Chicago Marathon, Chepngetich, 30, lowered the marathon world record by nearly two minutes, to 2:09:56. World Athletics ratified the record in December, which means her post-race doping test did not detect any banned substances.
HCTZ, a diuretic, is not a performance-enhancing substance, but it’s banned because it’s commonly used as a masking agent. The drug can dilute the concentration of banned substances in athletes’ urine, which makes them harder to detect.
HCTZ is primarily used to treat fluid retention and hypertension, but because it’s a relatively common contaminant in non-banned drugs, only HCTZ levels of 20 ng/mL or higher are reported as adverse analytical findings. The estimated concentration of HCTZ in Chepngetich’s urine was 3800 ng/mL, 190 times the allowable limit. So it would be hard to argue this was a case of accidental contamination.
The positive test was reported to the AIU on April 3. According to the press release, Chepngetich was “notified and interviewed in person by the AIU in Kenya on April 16 and complied with requests regarding our investigation.” Two days later, she withdrew from the London Marathon, and said via a statement, “I’m not in the right place mentally or physically to race my best in London and I am therefore withdrawing. I am very sad to miss the race and I hope to be back next year.”
The AIU did not initially provisionally suspend Chepngetich. Per their press release, when athletes test positive for masking agents, a provisional suspension is not required under the World Anti-Doping Code, but on April 19, she opted for a voluntary provisional suspension. Based on the available information, it sounds like she could have run the London Marathon, because she hadn’t been suspended yet. But assuming her ban becomes official, her result would have been stripped, possibly before she could collect any prize money or an appearance fee.
My best guess is that she figured it was in her best interest to begin her ban as soon as possible, so that it could be over as quickly as possible. Chepngetich has the right to have her case heard before a disciplinary tribunal, and it will be interesting to see if she pursues that option.
The standard ban for a masking agent like HCTZ is two years, but that can be increased or decreased. In recent years, a number of athletes have received longer bans for tampering with the anti-doping process—falsifying documents or coming up with stories that are later disproven. But from the information provided, it sounds like Chepngetich has cooperated so far, which is her best bet if she’s hoping to get back to competing as soon as possible.
If the AIU ultimately determines that Chepngetich is guilty, it will be interesting to see how long she is banned for. If she gets only two years, she could be back on the starting line by April 2027, which would be frustrating to many in the running community. Especially because in these cases, the masking agents are usually masking substances that come with a four-year ban.
When athletes test positive for banned substances, only their results that came after the positive test are stripped. Because Chepngetich’s positive test was five months after her world record, her 2:09:56 will stand—unless her case is high-profile and extreme enough to trigger a rule change (or unless the AIU uncovers additional information).
When Chepngetich set the record, the doping accusations were so loud and numerous that Athletics Kenya put out a statement criticizing the “baseless claims” against her. While I think the statement was over the top, I do think it’s dangerous for fans, members of the media, and others to assume they can tell who is doping and who isn’t.
Many of the people who spoke out against the accusations at the time—myself included—were not ruling out the possibility she was doping. We were saying if she was, she had the right to due process, just like everyone else. Plus she is far from the only athlete doing things that would have seemed impossible 10 years ago. Now the AIU has spoken (provisionally).
I am not surprised to learn that she was likely doping, but I am a bit surprised she was caught. Doping is unfortunately very common in the sport, and the data suggests it’s rampant in Kenya. There are currently 140 Kenyan athletes on the AIU’s global list of ineligible persons (updated July 1). India has 129, Russia has 61, Ethiopia has 15, the U.S. has 14, and Great Britain has zero. And only a small fraction of dopers are actually caught. I think some more casual fans of the sport think that passing a drug test means an athlete is clean. It can mean that, but there are ways to dope that are less likely to be detected. Like through microdosing and, in the BALCO scandal, designer steroids.
In Chicago, Chepngetich went out at 2:06–2:07 marathon pace, hit halfway in 1:04:15, only 14 seconds slower than her PR, and took 1:57 off of an already eye-popping record. And she PRed by 4 minutes, 22 seconds well into her marathoning career. None of those things proves she was doping, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the performance led to her being drug tested more frequently.
Athletes react to Chepngetich’s provisional suspension
The announcement of Chepngetich’s positive test sparked a lot of strong reactions from fellow professional athletes, and that’s understandable. A world record holder cheating has a larger trickle down effect that most people realize. Here are excerpts from some of the responses that I thought were well articulated:
Aisha Praught Leer: “Drug cheats in track & field ruin a lot for clean athletes. It’s not just the end result. It’s race tactics that can cook your clean legs because you don’t have the extra ‘gear’ to hold the move, or go out way too fast. It’s standards that are set based on the previous year’s (doped) results. Those standards determine if you make it to the Olympics or Worlds. Those coveted spots determine what meets or races you get to run. Which determines how fast you are. Which determines how much you get paid. Which determines if your dreams are valuable enough to keep chasing.”
Emily Sisson: "’Ignorance is bliss’ is how you have to operate on a starting line to give yourself a shot and not count yourself out of any race. Plus, you can have your own gut instinct but you can never really know. What has been something that has been hard for me to swallow lately is feeling like trying to keep up has really taken a toll on my body. I try to keep things light and positive, but when this news breaks, it feels like a punch in the gut.”
Gabriela DeBues-Stafford: “(The) frustrating thing about this news is that her world record will still stand… I feel like it’s time for that to change. So many athletes who get caught for doping get to keep so many accolades, medals, records, because their positive sample isn’t traced to those specific results.”
In a video, she added, “It’s just moments like this where you feel like we could be better as a sport about doing more to discourage people from taking performance-enhancing substances, and this feels like a really simple fix.” I appreciated that she added that she usually doesn’t like talking about doping because it sometimes becomes a pile-on directed at one athlete. “I don’t feel like it’s cool or classy for me, a Canadian, to be pointing fingers and blaming this one athlete because Africans are some of the most taken-advantage-of athletes in the sport, and the pressure for them to use performance-enhancing drugs is immense,” she said.
Additional Thoughts
As DeBues-Stafford alluded to, last week’s news was about Chepngetich, but her case is a symptom of a much larger problem. Banning her will do little to fix the problem, because she is replaceable. Until the people helping athletes dope are held accountable, we’re not going to see a lot of change. Assuming she is found guilty, it will be good to have one less doper on the starting line, but I’m not convinced that this case is going to do anything to move the needle. Unless the relative lack of consequences creates enough outrage that people push for change.
There’s been a lot of discussion this past week about the fact that Federico Rosa is Chepngetich’s agent. He’s come under a lot of scrutiny in the past, because he’s had quite a few athletes test positive for performance-enhancing substances. He also works with a lot of athletes, 95 at the moment, according to World Athletics’ database. (But that might not be the most accurate list.) In 2016, he was investigated by Kenyan authorities, but he was ultimately allowed to continue working as an agent in Kenya and beyond. It will be interesting to see if this case leads to any change, but I’m not holding my breath.
I’ve seen several athletes saying that if Chepngetich hadn’t won the Chicago Marathon in [fill in the blank] would have won. (Chepngetich won the race in 2021, 2022, and 2024.) But the ripple effect is larger than that. If Chepngetich hadn’t been in the field, the race likely would have played out differently. And if Chicago hadn’t paid Chepngetich a presumably hefty appearance fee those years, the race would have brought in additional top athletes who also could have contended for the title.
It makes me sad that the first woman ever to run a sub-2:10 marathon was likely doping. But at the same time, many of the major barriers throughout history have been broken by athletes who were almost certainly doping. It’s just one of the unfortunate realities of the sport.
Athlos founder Alexis Ohanian has recently been touting the fact that last year, they paid athletes within a few business days of receiving their wire information. That makes me wonder if they did any drug testing. One reason it seems like track & field has a big doping problem is that track & field does a lot more testing than other sports, which I appreciate.
Aside from the fact that doping is cheating and harms other people in all sorts of ways, reading about HCTZ made me think about the health ramifications of doping. I don’t know how much HCTZ one needs to take to have 190 times the allowable limit in their body, but I doubt the people helping athletes dope are keeping their long-term health in mind.
While it’s discouraging to learn that the world record holder was likely doping, track and field doesn’t have any more of a doping problem than it did a week ago; the topic is just getting more attention at the moment. I still believe there are clean athletes doing things the right way. Can I tell you who they are? No. And it’s not up to me to decide who is clean. To be a fan, I have to assume that doping control is working to a certain extent.
For more, this article has some helpful background about the recent history of doping and anti-doping efforts in Kenya. And I thought Kara Goucher and Des Linden had some interesting takes on this topic on Nobody Asked Us last week.
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Gudaf Tsegay leads a parade of national records in the Diamond League mile
I still wonder what Gudaf Tsegay could accomplish with more even pacing, but she finds a way to make her strategy work for her. In the mile at Saturday’s London Diamond League meet, she opted not to wait for pacer Catriona Bisset, who took the race out in 62.4 for the first 400m. Instead, she went around her and hit 400m in 60.0—a hair faster than Faith Kipyegon’s Breaking4 pace. (Sinclaire Johnson said afterward that in the warmup area, Tsegay’s husband/coach tried to get Bisset to hit 800m in 2:02, but she told him she was sticking to the plan.)
Tsegay’s pace lagged as she split 63.5 and 64.5 seconds for her next two laps, which allowed Australia’s Jessica Hull to close the gap. (Hull’s splits: 62.6, 62.7, 63.0, 63.8, plus 1.5 seconds for the last 9.34 meters.) With Hull close behind her going into the final lap, Tsegay rallied and managed a 62.4-second 400m (plus 1.4 seconds for the last 9.34 meters) and won the race in an Ethiopian record of 4:11.88, which makes her the second-fastest woman of all time. Hull took second in an Oceanian record of 4:13.68, which places her sixth on the all-time list.
Because the mile still isn’t run that often at the highest levels of the sport, any time a high-level mile race takes place, records tend to fall. But with each year, they’re getting tougher to beat. Ireland’s Sarah Healy took third in a PR of 4:16.26, and Johnson was fourth in 4:16.32, shaving 0.03 seconds off of Nikki Hiltz’s two-year-old American record.
Italy’s Marta Zenoni (fifth, 4:17.16), France’s Agathe Guillemot (sixth, 4:19.08), Portugal’s Salomé Afonso (eighth, 4:19.51), and Spain’s Esther Guerrero (12th, 4:20.12) also set national records. Ethiopia’s Birke Haylom tried going out with Tsegay and paid the price, fading to 10th in 4:19.74, far off what she’s capable of.
Sifan Hassan had originally planned to run this race, but she said on Twitter that she hasn’t been feeling her best and her body has not been responding as well as she would like. So she opted to skip it and focus on her next goal.
After missing the Olympic team by one spot last year and dealing with an injury setback at the start of the season, Johnson has strung together a series of strong performances heading into USAs. And there are now four American athletes (all of them still active) who have run within 0.15 seconds of one another in the mile: Johnson (4:16.32), Hiltz (4:16.35), Elle St. Pierre (4:16.41), and Elise Cranny (4:16.47), with Heather MacLean (4:17.01) not far behind.
In the 800m, Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell came from behind to win, to the delight of the home crowd. Addy Wiley moved up nicely to finish second in 1:57.43, improving her U.S.-leading time. Thus far in her short pro career, her best races haven’t aligned with the big championship races, but it will be interesting to see if she can turn that around at USAs, where she’ll go in as the favorite in the 800m.
In her second race back after injury, Great Britain’s Laura Muir finished 10th in 2:00.95. It was a significant improvement on her 2:03.41 season opener, and I appreciate that she’s remaining upbeat about her progress, even though she’s a ways off where she’s been in the past.
In the 5,000m, Ethiopians Medina Eisa (14:30.57) and Fantaye Belayneh (14:30.90) finished a close 1–2. Australia’s Rose Davies took third in an Oceanian record of 14:31.45, Great Britain's Innes FitzGerald finished 12th in a European U20 record of 14:39.56, and Belgium’s Jana Van Lent took 14th in a Belgian record of 14:42.93. Several athletes also ran significant personal bests, led by Australia’s Georgia Griffith, who finished fifth in 14:32.82, taking 30.1 seconds off of her PR. (Results | Detailed mile splits | Mile replay | 800m replay)
Other News
Over the years, a number of meets have experimented with holding track and field events outside of stadiums. But Athlos announced one of the more ambitious plans of that sort yet last week: On October 9, they will hold the qualifying round of the long jump in Times Square. (The final will take place the following day, with all the other events, at Icahn Stadium.) Tara Davis-Woodhall and Athlos founder Alexis Ohanian went on CBS Mornings last week to make the announcement. Kudos to them for making that happen. It could be great for the sport, and I appreciate the out-of-the-box thinking.
The qualifying window for the USATF Outdoor Championships closed yesterday, the entry deadline is tomorrow, and declarations close on Thursday. So later this week, it will become more clear who plans to run what and who made the cutoff to get into the meet. In the meantime, you can check who has already entered here. (There’s a filter in the upper left corner.)
Deena Kastor posted a touching tribute to her longtime coach, Joe Vigil, who died on Saturday at age 95.
Another Vigil protégé, Brenda Martinez, was just named the assistant distance coach at the University of Southern California.
And fellow Olympian Lindsey Anderson was just promoted to head coach of Weber State’s women’s cross country and track and field teams.
Jane Hedengren was named the Gatorade Female Player of the Year at the ESPYs last week. Only six other track & field athletes have earned that award: Allyson Felix (2003), Chanelle Price (2008), Candace Hill (2015), Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (2016 and 2017), Katelyn Tuohy (2018), and Sadie Engelhardt (2024).
Jay Holder has been appointed as USATF’s new Chief Content and Communications Officer, which will be an important role heading into the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Holder was previously the executive director of Running USA.
Last week, Forbes reported that Grand Slam Track still owes the City of Miramar $77,896 for its facility rental from the Miami Slam. I don’t think it’s news that GST is having financial struggles at this point, the question will be whether they can find a way to rebound. Dennis Young recently wrote an interesting piece for Front Office Sports titled Track’s New Money Is Running Into Old Problems.
In 2023, I wrote about Sophie King’s quick rise in the sport. And I appreciated this update from the Richmond Times-Dispatch last week.
Jessa Hanson has signed with Adidas.
Two former Cal Poly Humboldt cross country and track & field athletes have accused head coach Jamey Harris, a former professional runner, of inappropriate behavior.
Trans sprinter Sadie Schreiner is suing Princeton University after she was prevented from competing in a track meet at the school at the last minute. Schreiner also posted about being excluded from a meet at Boston University last winter, and the email informing her that she wouldn’t be allowed to compete specifically cited the U.S. president’s executive order. In the past, trans women have been allowed to compete at college meets, and because these events accept open entries, it would be very difficult for meet organizers to keep tabs on who is and isn’t trans. It’s just an unfortunate situation all around, and colleges and universities are concerned about non-compliance, given the current pressure from above.
Three nonbinary runners recently filed a complaint with the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations over their lack of full inclusion in the Philadelphia Marathon. Like other races, the Philly Marathon offers prize money to nonbinary runners, but not as much as the elite men and women receive.
Additional Results
Some athletes used Saturday’s Stumptown Twilight meet in Portland, Oregon, as a tuneup for USAs, while others used it as a last-chance qualifying meet. Riley Chamberlain won the 800m in 1:59.75, her first sub-2:00 performance. Dani Jones took second in a PR of 2:00.19, and Teagan Schein-Becker was third in a season’s best and near PR of 2:00.64. Allie Wilson took sixth in 2:01.24, continuing her upward trajectory. Anna Camp-Bennett won the 1500m in 4:05.38, Şilan Ayyildiz, of Turkey and the University of Oregon, took second in 4:05.71, and steeple specialist Kaylee Mitchell ran a 3.06-second PR of 4:06.39 to take third. Karissa Schweizer took fourth in 4:07:04, and running her first race back in several months due to an injury setback, Angel Piccirillo took fifth in 4:07.11. Recent high school graduate Sadie Engelhardt finished eighth in a 1.08-second PR of 4:07.78. And I was also impressed by Minnesota Distance Elite’s Cailee Peterson, who finished second in her heat in 4:10.81. Over the past two weekends, she has improved her PR by 5.71 seconds. I’m curious what Elise Cranny was hoping to get out of this meet. In a six-finisher 5,000m where she lapped half the field, she ran 15:06.65 to win. Elly Henes, who is on her way back after another setback due to her collapsed lung, ran her first race of the season, taking second in 15:39.25. And Allie Ostrander won a three-woman steeplechase race, running a solo 9:35.11 in her season opener. (Results | Meet replay)
At the Night of Athletics meet in Heusden-Zolder, Bahrain’s Winfred Yavi won the steeplechase by nearly 30 seconds, running 8:49.59. Ethiopia’s Nigist Getachew won the 800m in 1:57.01, Kimberley May of New Zealand and Providence College won the 1500m in 4:08.34, and Kenya’s Mary Moraa won the 400m in 50.49 seconds. (Results)
Switzerland’s Audrey Werro won the 800m at the European U23 Championships in a championship record of 1:57.42. (All results)
France’s Clara Liberman won the Spitzen Leichtathletik Luzern 800m in 1:59.25, and four days later, she won the Meeting Madrid 800m in 1:58.96.
Ethiopia’s Hawi Abera won the Meeting International d'Athlétisme de la Province de Liège 5,000m in 14:49.70, and close behind her, Australia’s Maudie Skyring was thrilled to run 14:49.93 and narrowly dip under the world championship standard. And Eleanor Fulton finished eighth in a PR of 15:15.82. Botswana’s Oratile Nowe won the 800m in 1:59.37. (Results)
Italy’s Eloisa Coiro won the Grand Prix Brescia 800m in 1:59.21, and Gaia Sabbatini, also of Italy, narrowly won a tactical 1500m against a strong field, running 4:07.41. (Results)
I haven’t had the time to dive into the results from the African U18 and U20 Championships, but I’ve loved seeing the Nala Track Club posting about their athletes having success at the event. Mary Ngugi-Cooper founded the group to provide a safe training environment for Kenyan girls, in the wake of Agnes Tirop’s murder.
The USATF Masters Outdoor Championships took place in Huntsville, Alabama, last week. USATF has recaps from day one, day two, and day three, and the results are available here. I was happy to see Joetta Clark Diggs competing again. She won the 60–64 200m, running 28.43 seconds into a -2.2 m/s headwind.
Podcast Highlights
I normally wouldn’t include an episode with Grant Fisher here, but I enjoyed hearing him discuss his role in Breaking4 on the Ali on the Run Show. That part begins around the 25:00 mark. It was interesting to hear him discuss memorizing what were essentially football plays and rehearsing for a variety of scenarios, based on how things played out. Other people have commented on this, so I wasn’t surprised to hear him say that Faith Kipyegon was uncomfortable having really tall guys right in front of her, so they adjusted the plan to take that into account. He also said that if they had paced the race for a 4:04, he thinks there’s a high likelihood she could have done that.
Colleen Quigley had a number of interesting things to say on I’ll Have Another. She said she went to Lululemon this year and told them she was trying to get Meridia off the ground, but if it didn’t work, she was planning to retire from professional running. So she currently has a one-year contract with the brand. But if Meridia does take off, she can also envision running the team being part of her retirement plan.
I enjoyed hearing from Zoë Rom and Kylee Van Horn of the Your Diet Sucks podcast, which takes a critical look at diet culture, on The Lane 9 Podcast.
Thanks again to Omius for supporting Fast Women this week, and thank you, also, to everyone who helps keep this newsletter going with your support via Venmo and Patreon. I hope you all have a good week.
Alison
The Grant Fisher podcast made me think of the great interview Fast People did with his coach. Are there plans to bring the podcast back?
Damn that hydrochlorothiazide-tainted burrito!