Why has the running world turned its back on the new women’s marathon world record?

There was a curious response last Sunday afternoon as word began to spread of the new women’s marathon world record run by Ruth Chepngetich in Chicago. Gone was some of the mild scepticism and suspicion which has greeted many of the world athletics records in modern times and instead, most people simply weren’t buying it.
It wasn’t just that her winning time of 2:09:56 took just under two minutes off the previous mark set this time last year, which was already in previously unfathomable territory; or that Chepngetich won the elite women’s race by almost eight minutes, or well over a mile-and-a-half.
At age 30, Chepngetich came to Chicago with some considerable marathon pedigree, a twice-previous winner and 2019 world champion, but she also improved her previous best of 2:14:18 to become the first woman in history to break the 2:10 barrier — 13 months after Tigst Assefa from Ethiopia broke 2:12 for the first time with her 2:11:53 run in Berlin.
Irish marathon aficionados immediately recognised her 2:09:56 as the same time John Treacy ran to win the silver medal in the men’s Olympic marathon in Los Angeles in 1984. That wasn’t hanging around either and would have won Treacy the gold medal in the next five men’s Olympic marathons.
For further comparison purposes, her world record is now almost 13½ minutes faster than the Irish women’s marathon record of 2:22:23, set by Catherina McKiernan in Amsterdam in 1998.
Much of the response to Chepngetich’s world record did acknowledge the fact she has never failed a doping test, but that certainly doesn’t give her a free pass from any suspicions, especially since Kenyan distance runners have been returning positive doping tests over the last five or six years at a faster rate than any other country in the world.
There was some inevitable pointing at her shoes too, Chepngetich wearing the same Nike Alphafly 3 model as spectacularly debuted by Kelvin Kiptum, also from Kenya, when at age 23 he took half a minute off the men’s world record in Chicago last year, winning in 2:00:35. (Tragically, Kiptum was killed in a road accident in Kenya just four months later.)
Impossible as it is to measure, this new era of super-shoes, post-Rio 2016, has undeniably recalibrated men’s and women’s marathon times. At this point, however, their impact should be levelling out, not being accelerated again.
There is nothing whatsoever suspicious of Chepngetich’s coach, simply because she doesn’t have one, although her Italian agent Federico Rosa does have a worrying history when it comes to Kenya distance runners (multiple Boston and Chicago champion Rita Jeptoo, and 2016 Olympic champion Jemima Sumgong, among those serving lengthy doping bans).
Chepngetich was asked straight out about the allegations during her post-race press conference: “Some people may think that the time is too fast and you must be doping. What would you say to them?”
Chepngetich: “You know people must talk but … people must talk so I don’t know.”
Former Guardian athletics correspondent Duncan Mackay was succinct in his opinion when saying: “I think people have just grown tired at the industrial scale of doping uncovered in Kenyan athletics in recent years which is certainly at least on a par with Russia. This performance from Ruth Chepngetich just seems to have been the straw that has broken the camel’s back and sums up people’s disbelief in Kenyan performances.”
Soon, it felt like almost the entire running world had simply turned its back on Chepngetich’s record. How could it have come to this?
I’ve been fortunate in life to have witnessed dozens of world records, from Michael Johnson and Haile Gebrselassie and Usain Bolt right through to Mondo Duplantis in the pole vault at the Paris Olympics this summer, and even if there was mild scepticism and suspicion about some over the years, they would always excite, maybe even inspire.
This time it feels utterly different, neatly surmised by US running journalist Amby Burfoot, winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon, who penned his opinion this week under the headline: “Why It’s Hard To Trust Ruth Chepngetich’s Marathon World Record.”
Burfoot writes: “Ruth Chepngetich’s epic 2:09:56 world record in the Chicago Marathon on Sunday was unequivocally the greatest marathon performance of all time”, before adding: “And that makes me queasy. In fact, I’m outraged.
“I’m going to try to explain as briefly as possible why I am so troubled by this performance. And I admit that I could be wrong. After all, I have no evidence that Chepngetich cheated, as she has never failed a doping test. But I don’t think I’m wrong. And I don’t think this is a time to be quiet.”
Burfoot then adds: “Maybe we can’t rewrite the record books, but we can still stand up and speak our truth. Because women runners deserve better. Because all runners deserve better. It’s our sport and our stories. Let’s tell them loud and clear, and clean.”
Fellow US running journalist Toni Reavis was equally strident when he wrote: “Some refuse to even consider the possibility of these record times. Others say ‘wait and see if any positive testing follows down the line’, as we have seen many times before. And very few say, ‘everything’s on the up and up. There’s nothing here to see other than a great performance’.”
Christopher Kelsall of Australian-based Athletics Illustrated also wrote this week that “Chepngetich’s Sunday performance at the Chicago Marathon was paradigm-shifting. For anyone who knows anything about marathon running, it took a second upon first seeing the time to absorb the gravity of it … When will Wada, and World Athletics put their hands up and consider Kenya a country complicit and needing to be suspended so that they may clean house? Does Chepngetich need to test positive and receive a four-year ban for this to happen?
“When is enough, enough?”
That answer for better or for worse may have come in Chicago last Sunday.