Ruth Chepngetich's failed doping test, five months after she obliterated the women's marathon world record in 2024, left the sport deeply uneasy but powerless to act. Her world record still stands because she passed a test after the race itself.
Record run and immediate reaction
When Chepngetich annihilated the women's marathon world record in Chicago two years ago, NBC's commentators compared it to the moon landing. “Bring it on Neil Armstrong!” cried one. “She has done things in this sport that we have not seen,” said another. “Unbelievable!”
That was a word others reached for too after the Kenyan had crossed the line in 2hr 9min 56sec, a time that not only smashed the world record by 1min 57sec, but her personal best by a staggering five minutes. Afterwards she was asked by Robert Johnson of Let's Run what her response was to those who believed she must be doping. “People must talk,” she replied. “I don't know.”
Doping ban and legal limits
Five months after that epic run, Chepngetich's star came crashing down to earth. First she failed a doping test. Then she was banned for three years. The Kenyan's defence for being 20 times the legal limit of hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) in her system was that she had taken her housemaid's medication after feeling hot and having a rapid resting heartbeat. It was, the AIU noted, a “hardly credible” explanation.
The AIU also found screenshots on Chepngetich's phone about the banned drug testosterone and “messages related to unidentified third parties working on 'programs' possibly related to doping”. The Kenyan has insisted that she has never used testosterone and the messages were from a group chat, but they hardly inspire confidence either.
What can be done?
Brett Clothier, the head of the Athletics Integrity Unit, which prosecuted the case against Chepngetich, admitted: “It is not satisfactory, to be frank. But the world anti-doping code is pretty clearcut on the rights athletes have, even if they're found guilty of a doping offence.”
As a Wada spokesperson pointed out, removing her results before her positive test “in the absence of any evidence or reasonable inference that the athlete was doping before or at the time of the earlier results, might well breach a number of legal principles including proportionality and human rights.”
One idea floated to various experts was that athletes could be asked to sign a social contract, pledging they would accept losing their world record if they tested positive within a year of that world record or winning an Olympic medal. In theory, one anti-doping expert put it, it was possible to do this. But he felt it would require everybody – from sports federations and governments to athlete bodies and human rights groups – to buy in and to agree to change the Wada code to allow retrospective punishments. And that is not going to happen.
Positive signs in anti-doping
Track and field can point to many significant victories over doping in the last decade, given that Chepngetich is one of 317 elite Kenyan athletes the AIU has caught since it was set up in 2017. The AIU does it on a modest budget of $11.9m (£9m) a year.
There are also positive signs that prominent athletes realise more must be done when it comes to anti-doping. Before Sabastian Sawe set his men's marathon world record in London, his sponsors, Adidas, paid $50,000 for extra testing. Nike did the same for two of their athletes, Jacob Kiplimo and Brigid Kosgei, before Chicago. Sawe's agent, Eric Lilot, wants to go further by making his athletes sign a contract that will require them to give up any money still owed to them if it is shown they intentionally tried to dope. All that points to brighter days ahead, however much Chepngetich's record makes us feel queasy.
