Ruth Chepngetich just ruined the sport of marathon

actually Kawauchi never did mega mileage. He averaged 150k per week, which was on the low side of marathoners at his level.

Don't know if it has shown up on letsrun before, but read this article a month ago:

atni.be

Gezant van AIU in Kenia getuigt: “Dopinggebruik wordt gebanaliseerd: als iedereen het mag doen, waarom ik dan niet?”

Milan Augustijns

Sinds vorig jaar heeft de Athletics Integrity Unit, het antidopingorgaan van de atletiekwereld, iemand permanent in probleemland Kenia zitten. Raphael Roux kent de lokale dopingproblematiek als geen ander. “Het platte opportu...

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Thought about it immediately after seeing Chepngetich WR.

Using google translate:
Since last year, the Athletics Integrity Unit, the anti-doping body of the athletics world, has had someone permanently stationed in the problem country of Kenya. Raphael Roux knows the local doping problem like no other. “The flat opportunism is what distinguishes Kenya from Russia. Here it is the jungle,” he says during an interview in a lunch bar in Eldoret.
For strategic reasons, he stayed under the radar for a while, without giving interviews. For the same strategic reason, he does not want his picture on the website, but after some insistence, Raphael Roux does give in to give his opinion about the Kenyan doping problem to Atletieknieuws and L'Equipe. During his previous job as global director of out-of-competition testing of the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), the Frenchman already came to Kenya regularly, but since last year he has been permanently based in Eldoret as a local envoy of AIU.

You have long been pushing for the Anti Doping Agency Kenya (ADAK), which is currently based only in Nairobi, to open an office in Eldoret in the west. Why is that crucial?
“Everything that has to do with distance running is centered around Eldoret. Going from Nairobi to Eldoret three times a year and testing all the marathon runners here at the same time doesn’t work. You’ll catch a few, but to really work well you have to visit training camps here all the time and make sure you know who’s in what stage of their preparation. Some people at ADAK didn’t even know where the training camps were here.”

On the list of suspended Kenyan athletes we mainly see EPO and Nandrolone. Are these the products you usually find?
“We see everything. The top performers use targeted products at targeted moments. The group below that falls under the heading of opportunism. There it is the pharmacist around the corner who injects something. We recently caught a nurse who stole EPO from a hospital in Eldoret to sell it in Iten. That plain opportunism is what distinguishes Kenya from Russia. In Russia it was tightly centrally controlled. Here it is the jungle.”

Do you focus on athletes, or also on the people around them who influence the athletes?
“Personally, I am only responsible for testing, but of course I pick up a lot of information and pass it on to the people who deal with intelligence. Running is a business here. That attracts people from home and abroad. The fact that there is so much money involved in running also ensures that there are a huge number of people hoping to profit from it. Everything starts from the money that can be earned with it. What we also often see are doctors and pharmacists who sell placebos to athletes. The athlete thinks that he is doping, but that is not the case at all. In the meantime, the seller has made money from it.”

Is it opportunistic money-making that characterizes the problem in Kenya?
“You see that everywhere where there is money to be had, but here it is obvious. In a Kenyan police station there is a “corruption free zone” of two square meters. That means that everything else is corrupt. When I saw that for the first time, I had to laugh out loud and I took a picture. There are also signs that you are not allowed to pay with sex. But you can pay with cash. That is a cultural problem.”

The stories about doping controllers who were easily bribed seem to be mainly about ten to fifteen years ago. Have those practices been eliminated?
“I don’t dare trust anyone. It can still happen, but we do take measures. The inspector only knows the athlete he has to test at the last moment, and if he can’t find him, alarm bells go off. We also pay the inspectors well, in the hope that they will then be less inclined to accept bribes. There are also fake inspectors, by the way, who call athletes and ask for 10,000 euros in hush money. There are also people who send a letter in the name of ADAK to say that an athlete has tested positive, and then ask for hush money.”

Back to local culture, people here say that you understand more quickly why someone is doping if you have experienced real poverty.
“What is a problem is the gap between ordinary life here and the prize money you can win from running. A Kenyan who wins $10,000 in an American marathon can support his family for ten years.”

Do athletes who are caught tell you as little about how they got into doping as they do to us?
"They don't say anything at all. Recovering more information is a point of work for us. Sometimes there are those who want to say something in the hope of a reduced sentence, but that often turns out not to be true. There is an omerta here."

How do you explain that omerta? What are they afraid of?
"We are talking about drug trafficking here. It is done by cartels. They are bandits, not nice guys. Athletes are threatened and under pressure."

Some athletes seem ashamed and flee to another village, others continue as if nothing happened. Do you see much shame?
"The punishments are certainly not severe enough to ensure that everyone who is caught is deeply concerned about it. Doping use is trivialized. If everyone can do it, why can't I?"

Many athletes hide behind a lack of knowledge. They supposedly did not know that they were taking a banned product. Do you believe that?
“With lighter products, such as tranquilizers, which lead to a six-month suspension, that is certainly possible. But with serious doping, which leads to a four-year suspension, that is unbelievable. You don't take EPO thinking it was fruit juice.”

What do you think about the role of the manager? There are many stories about it.
“You have them in all shapes and sizes. You have those who encourage doping, those who turn a blind eye, those who are radically against it and those who genuinely know nothing about it.”

How do you recognize reliable managers?
"The more athletes they throw out, the more credible they are. If they want to give too many athletes a second chance, then something is often wrong. Or they turn a blind eye."

The managers I speak to all say that positive cases damage their reputation, and that there is therefore no reason to participate in doping.
"That they then cooperate with the anti-doping work. Communicating with us really doesn't cost that much time and money, but eighty percent of the managers don't do it. I know Chinese and American managers who have never been to Kenya, but who have quite a few athletes here. It's all about making money without investing anything else in the sport. Some athletes only keep five percent of their prize money. The rest disappears into the pockets of others. That's bordering on slavery."

What do you think needs to be done to finally curb or at least limit doping use in Kenya?
“I like to draw the comparison with poaching. That was a big problem in Kenya. It was solved by turning poachers into forest rangers. It is great that the government is investing 5 million dollars in anti-doping work, but a cultural shift is also needed. The people who are now making money from doping will have to make money from anti-doping in the future. I cannot achieve that on my own. We will have to enforce that with the Kenyan authorities. May I ask you something myself? Why are you doing research in Kenya and not in Ethiopia or Uganda?”

Because those countries do not even come close to the number of positive cases of Kenya.
“However, the problem there is exactly the same. There are slightly fewer athletes, certainly in Uganda, so the volume is somewhat lower, but the problem is mainly that the local governments do not yet invest in anti-doping like in Kenya. There is not even a doping lab there. So the problem is less on the surface, but there are athletes there who disappear from the face of the earth for three years to then run a world record.”

Then we will immediately know where our next investigative report will go.

The guy saying “you seem like an intelligent guy” stop it you’re not that smart. Keep you 117 IQ at home with your “wife”

Pure nonsense and hate..

Let me ask: where were you or where was LRC when Paula clocked 2:15?

Where was LRC when Ingebristen clocked 8:17?

Where was LRC when Jessica Hull broke that world record?

It's as if Ruth appeared out of nowhere and clocked 2:09. Have you cared to analyze her progression and running style?

Let's stop being biased. Not every runner who breaks a record is doping!!!!

200 busts and keep them coming. And that's just who they catch with fairly basic testing protocols. No bias here - Kenya is the doping center of the distance running world.

it's all about the company one keeps.

Thanks for posting! This article provided a ton of context about the problem in Kenya.

BTW, the title said "Dopinggebruik wordt gebanaliseerd: als iedereen het mag doen, waarom ik dan niet?" which means "Use of PEDs (in Kenya) is no big deal: if everyone else can do it, then why shouldn't I?"

When we think about what is ruining the sport, we have to ask whether associations, officials and organisers are doing enough to keep the sport clean. Experience shows that everyone does what they think they can do because they usually get away with it.

my favorite, the ultra jacked body builder with the 800m record.

ratified, and with no testing.

actually these records can't be ratified, without testing.

so they are invalid.

That is Bruce Jenner in the second thumbnail.

Ahhhh, the sweet seething tears from down under.

Lol. There was tons of discussion of Hull and and Radcliff. The bias card is played out.

No tears. I don't care, I merely make observations. I mean, it's not my living the East African's are taking away by cheating. Who was the first clean man and women in Chicago? Maybe the non doped runners behind them might harbour some annoyance at their PED shenanigans?

Maybe you can shut your white mouths and figure out how to reclaim ýour lost spot in.global hegemony

Racist comments should be deleted. The comments should solely be about the proven level of doping in East Africa, nothing more. If there was the same volume of busts in any country (race not withstanding) there rightly should be outcry.

I thought Paula Radcliffe ruined it years ago.

No one could touch her time.

Radcliffe, April 2003: 2:15:25; next best woman: 2:18:47 (3:22 behind); men’s WR: 2:05:38 (9:47 faster) – stood for 16 years (until supershoes came)
Chepngetich, October 2024: 2:09:56; next best woman: 2:11:53 (1:57 behind); men’s WR: 2:00:35 (9:21 faster)

Yes, I’d say Radcliffe’s performance was more, ummm, outstanding.

And there is the massive $$ incentive for athletes not just win but throw down a WR by the World Majors industrial marathon complex. Between Chicago and Boston alone, there is quite the who's who of winners in the banned athletes and stripped titles list. Though Lawrence Cherono won Chicago/Boston in 2019, and in July 2024 received a 7 year ban backdated to 2022, how many other cheaters get through? Most of them.. Perhaps just a losing battle for the Athletics Integrity Unit program and other anti doping efforts.. :-(

The megathon marathon events absolutely exacerbate the demand for these high level doped performances

this was published in The Guardian by Sean Ingle in April 2019..(I can't post link to article)

"Hugh Brasher, the event director of the London Marathon, said the World Marathon Majors had given the AIU a “big six-figure sum” in order to protect the integrity of their races. “It is the biggest amount of money, to our knowledge, that has ever been spent on private testing programmes,” he said. “But we are absolutely determined to have a sport of integrity.”
"In recent years the Olympic champion, Jemima Sumgong, and the former Chicago and Boston Marathon winner Rita Jeptoo have been given lengthy bans. But Brett Clothier, the AIU head, said greater investigative work needed to be done to catch more cheats. “Testing alone can’t protect the integrity of these events or any sporting event or catch and deter sophisticated drug cheats. Unfortunately that is just the reality. Few drugs tests turn into positives. So you need to gather intelligence in order to conduct investigations and bring cases not just based on testing."

How is all that an argument that Ruth Chepngetich could reasonably run 2:09:56 clean?

She ran 99% of her 10km pr of 30:29 for the marathon.