Shelby Houlihan’s Drug Ban Is Over. Now What?
After serving a four-year ban and missing two Olympics, the American 1500m record holder is free to compete again and plans to return to racing this month
By Jonathan GaultShelby Houlihan is eligible to race once again. For the past four years, Houlihan, a 2016 Olympian and 13-time US champion, had been suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit after testing positive for the banned steroid nandrolone in December 2020. Houlihan denied — and still denies — knowingly consuming nandrolone and argued the substance entered her body via a contaminated pork burrito. The Court of Arbitration of Sport did not buy the argument and banned her for four years. Houlihan’s ban commenced on January 14, 2021, which meant that she missed two Olympics — Tokyo, which was delayed a year to 2021 due to COVID, as well as last summer’s Games in Paris.
As of today, Houlihan’s ban is up. Her return to the sport figures to be one of the biggest storylines of the 2025 season, and brings with it a number of questions. How fast will she run? Will anyone sponsor her? How will she be received? Here’s what we know and don’t know about Houlihan’s return.
How fast will she run?
When Houlihan’s ban was confirmed in June 2021, she was among the world’s top distance runners. In 2019, she finished fourth in the 1500 meters at the World Championships, running an American record of 3:54.99. In 2020, she broke her own American record by running 14:23.92 (Alicia Monson lowered the record to 14:19.45 in 2023). Notably, both performances came while Houlihan was wearing “old school” Nike Victory spikes rather than the more modern “superspikes” featuring advanced foam cushioning that have taken over the sport. Houlihan dominated the US championships from 2017-20, winning 13 of her 14 appearances during that span across indoor track, outdoor track, and cross country. At 28 years old, Houlihan was in her prime in 2021 and looked to be a serious medal contender for the upcoming postponed Tokyo Olympics.
Now Houlihan is 31 (she turns 32 on February 8). She has not competed in a major race since 2020, though she did run two road races in Iowa in 2022 and 2023 (neither of which were sanctioned by USATF, so the races did not violate her ban) as well as the 2023 Beer Mile World Classic, where she set a women’s world record of 5:43. Is she still among America’s best distance runners?
Her new agent, Paul Doyle, believes the answer is a firm yes. When he began talking to Houlihan at the Olympic Trials in June 2024, he asked where her fitness was like. Around 85%, she told him.
“I said what does that mean?” Doyle said. “She said, probably 3:57 [for 1500]. Which is mind-blowing. I fully expect her to be getting right back to where she was very quickly. Of course, there are four years of cobwebs you’ve gotta dust off. But everything in her training indicates that she’ll be right back to her level she was at.”
Houlihan has continued to train through most of her suspension, and her public Strava account reveals that she has run 10 consecutive weeks of at 75 miles; last week, she logged a workout of 8 x mile (one-minute rest) averaging 5:23 at elevation in Flagstaff.
We will have a definitive answer on Houlihan’s fitness level once she resumes racing, which brings up another question…
Where will Houlihan be racing?
Having sat out the last four years, Houlihan is desperate to return to racing and Doyle confirmed that she will race, somewhere in the United States, during the month of January. He declined to say where.
“We’re going to do a first meet very hush-hush and then very quickly we’ll announce the second race,” Doyle said. “…She wants to take one race without much attention or pressure.”
Attention, however, will be difficult for Houlihan to avoid, particularly if she wants to compete in a larger professional meet, which naturally brings more media coverage.
“None of the professional meets that I’ve spoken to have been against having her,” Doyle said. “They’re just worried about the storyline of the meet. They don’t want [her return] to ambush the storyline of the meet…My hope is that once we get on the track a couple times and she runs a couple races, that that will become a thing of the past rather quickly.”
Ray Flynn, who serves as meet director of the Dr. Sander Scorcher (January 25) and the Millrose Games (February 8) at the Armory, said he would “have to think” about whether to accept Houlihan in the field if she asked to run in one of his meets.
“I wouldn’t want to be the first place where she comes back for lots of reasons,” Flynn said. “I don’t want the whole story to be about her and what’s happened. I’m interested in promoting a meet.”
The other major US pro meet this winter is the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston on February 2; meet director Mark Wetmore did not respond to an interview request for this story.
One meet where Houlihan is guaranteed an entry — assuming she hits the qualifying standard — is the USATF Indoor Championships in Staten Island on February 22-23. Houlihan is tentatively planning on running, but Doyle said that depends on how the next few weeks go.
“Whether we go through with it or not remains to be seen,” Doyle said. “It’s going to depend on how Shelby’s feeling and what she decides.”
Will she get a shoe contract?
Houlihan’s current training setup is quite different from four years ago. Previously coached by Jerry Schumacher at the Nike-sponsored Bowerman Track Club, Doyle said Houlihan is “mostly independent” at the moment, though she has received coaching advice from her sister, Shayla, who coaches at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix. Currently, Houlihan is at an altitude camp in Flagstaff, though Doyle described her as “a bit of a nomad.”
Doyle is also new, having taken over as her agent last year (previously she was represented by Stephen Haas at Total Sports). Doyle represents long jumper Jarrion Lawson, who tested positive for the banned steroid trenbolone in 2018 and was banned for four years by the AIU before successfully appealing his supension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled that he had ingested the substance unintentionally. Like Houlihan, Lawson blamed his positive test on contaminated meat, in his case a teriyaki beef bowl.
Doyle said that experience taught him that innocent athletes can still be convicted by the anti-doping authorities, and after speaking with Schumacher and Houlihan’s lawyer Paul Greene (who also represented Lawson), he came away convinced of Houlihan’s innocence. He said he has no hesitation in taking her on as an athlete.
“I saw the way Jerry reacted and everything he was voicing is the exact same way I was feeling with Jarrion Lawson,” Doyle said. “…In my mind, I’m 100% sure that this girl is clean. Having experienced and understanding how these contamination things happen and how the doping control basically throws an athlete under the bus, knowing full well that contamination happens, blows my mind. I had seen what she’d gone through, was devastated for her when she ended up getting banned.”
Houlihan is currently unsponsored and would like to join a training group. Doyle said he has been in conversation with a number of brands about a shoe contract. The reaction, he says, has been mixed.
“A good few of the brands have been really interested, really keen to sign her,” Doyle said. “And some of the other brands are saying no, we don’t want the potential for negative media around it, so some of them haven’t entertained it at all.”
LetsRun.com spoke with executives in the sports marketing departments at three shoe brands, who were granted anonymity in order to speak freely. One said he would be interested in signing Houlihan, but didn’t think his company would do it. The other two said they were not interested. All acknowledged that signing Houlihan would create more brand awareness — she remains a big name in the sport and her return in 2025 will generate attention, particularly if she runs well. But the two who were not interested in Houlihan said the negative attention associated with Houlihan’s doping suspension would not be worth it to them.
“Our job is ultimately to create brand affinity with consumers,” said one exec. “The whole reason we have athletes to begin with is to let consumers know that we’re a performance-driven company, that the products we make will help you achieve your goals. It’s aspirational. Regardless of the truth of her situation, her reputation is quite tarnished at this point.”
A second exec said that while he would like to root for Houlihan upon her return, he could not justify signing her due to the “baggage” associated with her suspension.
“An athlete has the opportunity to increase the brand awareness and also to authenticate innovation certainly, but that athlete also brings the past,” he said. “So the brand that decides to strike a partnership with an athlete, you’re picking up every single [part of the] athlete, the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
That said, the first shoe exec believes Houlihan will still run fast this season.
“I would put my own money on her making a team this summer for the US,” he said. “…And I would bet that she’s unsponsored when she makes that team.”
Doyle still retains hope that those attitudes could change once Houlihan returns.
“I personally feel that once we get her back on the track and number one, show what shape she’s in; number two, show that the media response isn’t negative, then I think we’ll see a lot more of the brands stepping up and gaining interest in her,” Doyle said.
The third exec said he would be interested in signing Houlihan, but was told by his superiors that it will not happen. He said that if a brand does sign Houlihan, he believes it will be to a contract with a low base salary but big incentives, given the uncertainty around her ability following a four-year break.
“I’ve been told that we just don’t have the money,” the exec said. “I don’t know if that’s the case or they just don’t want to sign her because of her baggage.”
Houlihan still has connections across a number of brands. Haas, her former agent, coaches Under Armour’s Dark Sky Distance team in Flagstaff. Pascal Dobert, who worked as a Bowerman assistant coach during Houlihan’s time with the team, now works in the sports marketing department at Puma. Most notably, Schumacher remains the head coach at Bowerman and remains supportive of Houlihan.
“Shelby is a great athlete and a fantastic teammate, and I believe she’s been treated incredibly unfairly,” Schumacher wrote in a text message to LetsRun.com. “If I had the opportunity, I would absolutely work with her again.”
For Houlihan to rejoin Bowerman TC, she would need to sign a Nike contract.
“They are one of the brands that are very interested in her,” Doyle said, though he noted that Houlihan is still considering all options. “Paul Moser from Nike is a big fan of hers and was really keen to re-sign her but we’re just waiting to see how things evolve and what they end up deciding to do and we decide to do.”
But even if Schumacher and Moser are supportive of Houlihan’s cause, they would still need to convince their superiors to sign off before Nike agrees to a deal. Moser, who is in charge of Nike’s North American professional athletes, did not respond to an email from LetsRun.com on Monday.
Nike notably sponsored 2004 Olympic 100m champion Justin Gatlin after the sprinter returned from a four-year suspension for a doping violation (like Houlihan, Gatlin had been a Nike athlete before his ban). Gatlin’s ban expired in 2010 but he did not sign with Nike until 2015, at which point he had already won world and Olympic medals in his return.
As for Houlihan, plenty remains uncertain about her comeback, particularly how she will be received by the fans. Fans booed Gatlin at a number of overseas meets, but largely cheered for him in the US, particularly after his medal record was read aloud during pre-race introductions. One exec says that even if his company won’t sign Houlihan, he is still fascinated to see how it all unfolds.
“I think everybody in the industry, regardless of what they tell you, is going to watch her first race,” the exec said. “…It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens.”
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Related Houlihan Coverage From The LRC Archives:
- LRC Sports Scientist Ross Tucker Tackles Our Biggest Unanswered Questions About the Shelby Houlihan Case Tucker: “The contaminated food explanation doesn’t stand up to basically any level of scrutiny.”
- LRC Shelby Houlihan Issues Statement Regarding Gabriela DeBues-Stafford Leaving The Bowerman Track C
- LRC Matthew Centrowitz defends Shelby Houlihan: “Absolutely, I support her. I believe her….I could have been in the position she was in”
- LRC 16 Questions That Need To Be Answered In The Shelby Houlihan Case
- LRC JG Shelby Houlihan’s Suspension Is a Track & Field Tragedy
- LRC Shelby Houlihan Tests Positive for Nandrolone, Banned from Track & Field for Four Years After Her CAS Appeal Is Unsuccessful