Doping In Athletics

[AmRacer]

By The Numbers: Jacob Kiplimo Shatters Half Marathon World Record With 56:41 In Barcelona - CITIUS Mag

What you need to know about Jacob Kiplimo's new half marathon world record of 56:41 at the 2025 eDreams Mitja Marató Barcelona.

citiusmag.com

Shattered the previous world record by 49 seconds. He ran his 5k to 15k split in basically his exact PB time for the 10.000km (26:33) and just about 20s slower than the 10k world record.
Even with the half marathon distance being historically a bit undervalued because rarely raced, these are absolute hilarious numbers.

Cycling and long distance running shattering records left and right currently, going to be interesting in a couple of years what new power fuel is the root of it all.

Medium distance running records have been shattered the past weeks.

 

[Ripper]

By The Numbers: Jacob Kiplimo Shatters Half Marathon World Record With 56:41 In Barcelona - CITIUS Mag

What you need to know about Jacob Kiplimo's new half marathon world record of 56:41 at the 2025 eDreams Mitja Marató Barcelona.

citiusmag.com

Shattered the previous world record by 49 seconds. He ran his 5k to 15k split in basically his exact PB time for the 10.000km (26:33) and just about 20s slower than the 10k world record.
Even with the half marathon distance being historically a bit undervalued because rarely raced, these are absolute hilarious numbers.

Cycling and long distance running shattering records left and right currently, going to be interesting in a couple of years what new power fuel is the root of it all.

It's the carbs ... shoes ... heat training ... modern training ... professionalism

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ)

Ruth Chepngetich: Women's marathon world record holder suspended for doping

Ruth Chepngetich, the women's marathon world record holder, is provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for a banned substance.

www.bbc.com

 

[Shakes]

Hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ)

Ruth Chepngetich: Women's marathon world record holder suspended for doping

Ruth Chepngetich, the women's marathon world record holder, is provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for a banned substance.

www.bbc.com

Not surprising unfortunately. She had less defenders than Pogacar but still a fair amount.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Berhane Tesfay, the winner of this year's Copenhagen Marathon, has been popped for EPO use.
He should have raced the Copenhagen Sprint instead.

 

[Sciatic]

Berhane Tesfay, the winner of this year's Copenhagen Marathon, has been popped for EPO use.
He should have raced the Copenhagen Sprint instead.

Something feels awry given the number of EPO busts in Athletics the past two years when there have been zero in pro cycling.

 

[Lorzenz08]

Something feels awry given the number of EPO busts in Athletics the past two years when there have been zero in pro cycling.

Doping control is way easier to avoid in athletics than in pro cycling especially for those who live in Africa.

 

[Sciatic]

Doping control is way easier to avoid in athletics than in pro cycling especially for those who live in Africa.

That’s would I would assume, but why is the result then many more positives in Athletics than in cycling.

 

[Rob5091]

https://www.reuters.com/sports/us-s...ly-suspended-whereabouts-failures-2025-08-12/

Olympic 100 metres silver and bronze medallist Fred Kerley has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit for whereabouts failures, the organisation said on Tuesday.
American Kerley, the 100m world champion in 2022, plans to contest the allegation that he violated anti-doping rules. "He strongly believes that one or more of his alleged missed tests should be set aside either because he was not negligent or because the Doping Control Officer did not do what was reasonable under the circumstances to locate him at his designated location," an attorney for Kerley said in a statement posted on his X account.

Somebody else with a faulty doorbell and a turned off phone?

 

[Mayomaniac]

https://www.espn.com/olympics/track...track-field-star-bekh-romanchuk-banned-doping
Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk banned for 4 years after testing positive for Testosterone.

 

[Sciatic]

https://www.espn.com/olympics/track...track-field-star-bekh-romanchuk-banned-doping
Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk banned for 4 years after testing positive for Testosterone.

Too bad, there aren’t many crossover long jump/triple jump athletes at the elite level.

 

[Invicituz]

US shot-putter Saunders suspended for whereabouts failures:

Raven Saunders suspended 2 1/2 years in whereabouts case

Raven Saunders, the Tokyo Olympic shot put silver medalist, had three whereabouts failures in a 12-month span.

sports.yahoo.com

 

[Invicituz]

USA sprinter Knighton handed four-year doping ban:

Erriyon Knighton ban: Sprinter handed four-year doping ban as Cas rules in favour of appeals by World Athletics and Wada

United States sprinter Erriyon Knighton is handed a four-year ban after the Court of Arbitration for Sport partially upholds appeals from World Athletics and Wada.

www.bbc.com

 

[Sciatic]

USA sprinter Knighton handed four-year doping ban:

Erriyon Knighton ban: Sprinter handed four-year doping ban as Cas rules in favour of appeals by World Athletics and Wada

United States sprinter Erriyon Knighton is handed a four-year ban after the Court of Arbitration for Sport partially upholds appeals from World Athletics and Wada.

www.bbc.com

Which organization was it that cleared him of wrongdoing (accepted his excuse) initially? IAAF! USA Athletics ?

 

[Invicituz]

Which organization was it that cleared him of wrongdoing (accepted his excuse) initially? IAAF! USA Athletics ?

Paris Olympics: US sprinter Erriyon Knighton avoids ban after failed drug test

United States sprinter Erriyon Knighton is cleared to compete at the Paris Olympics after avoiding a ban for a failed drug test.

www.bbc.com

 

[Sciatic]

Paris Olympics: US sprinter Erriyon Knighton avoids ban after failed drug test

United States sprinter Erriyon Knighton is cleared to compete at the Paris Olympics after avoiding a ban for a failed drug test.

www.bbc.com

Ah, Travis. Thanks.

 

[Sciatic]

Kenya Noncompliant? Ya think?

Kenya doping: Wada claims Kenya non-compliant with anti-doping code

The World Anti-Doping Agency alleges Kenya is non-compliant with its code and will face consequences next month unless certain conditions are met.

www.bbc.com

 

[Barnacle Bill]

Reading this article on the individuals involved in the US sprint teams - coaching, managing or competing - reminds one of what a mess the whole thing is. Then again, I could probably say the same for all the other top sprinters too. But having the likes of Mitchell and Gatlin involved is reminiscent of some of the dubious characters cycling keeps around.

Cracks appearing in US sprint team after Gabby Thomas’s attack on dopers
Injured Olympic 200m champion says coaches with a history of doping should be banned for life — uneasy reading for American sprinters guided by Dennis Mitchell

Injury may have denied Gabby Thomas an opportunity to claim a first individual world title in Tokyo but the American sprinter has still managed to spark an important conversation that, as much as it might make some people here uncomfortable, is long overdue.

Much of the focus on doping in track and field these past few years has been on distance running in east Africa, and understandably so given the sheer number of cases uncovered by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU).

But Thomas, the Harvard-educated Olympic 200m champion, has managed to turn the spotlight back towards the United States and the events in which she usually participates at these World Championships.

If an omerta still exists around performance-enhancing drugs in athletics — and there is no doubt it does in some areas for all the progress that has been made during Lord Coe’s tenure as World Athletics president — Thomas took a sledgehammer to it with a post on Instagram three weeks ago.

“Doping coaches should be banned for life from coaching in the sport,” she said in what appeared to be a response to some rumours on the internet about a US athlete. “Whether you were banned while competing as an athlete or caught distributing as a coach [for some, both]. If you train under a coach who is known for doping . . . you are complicit.”

It was widely regarded as a thinly veiled attack on a coach and his athletes who are expected to be prominent in the men’s and women’s 100m finals that will take place in the space of seven high-octane minutes in Japan’s National Stadium on Sunday night.

Dennis Mitchell and his Florida-based Star Athletics group come to Japan with serious ambitions. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden is the fastest woman in the world this year and the favourite for 100m gold. Sha’Carri Richardson is here defending the world title she secured in Budapest two years ago, while Kenny Bednarek will also be vying for honours — even if his best chance comes later in the week over 200m.

Mitchell has a long and troubling association with doping, as well as a level of notoriety for daring to deliver one of the more outrageous explanations for a positive drugs test when he was among the world’s leading sprinters; an Olympic and World Championships bronze-medal winner behind Linford Christie in the early 1990s.

In a bid to explain elevated levels of testosterone that resulted in a two-year ban in 1998, Mitchell claimed to have had sex multiple times with his wife while also downing five bottles of beer the night before the test. “It was her birthday,” he said. “The lady deserved a treat.”

That lady was Damu Cherry-Mitchell, a former US international sprint hurdler who also served a doping ban when she tested positive for an anabolic steroid in 2003. Today she is named as one of three coaches at Star Athletics, which receives financial support from Nike and also boasts Christian Coleman, boyfriend to Richardson and someone who has served a doping ban, among its charges. Coleman failed to qualify for an individual spot in the US team but is in Tokyo as a member of their relay squad.

Athletes who cheat may sometimes deserve a second chance but the charge sheet against Mitchell is considerable. During the Balco investigation that led to the downfall of Marion Jones, Mitchell admitted under oath that his coach, Trevor Graham, had injected him with human growth hormone.

In 2017 he was then implicated in a British newspaper investigation that involved a recording of a meeting with Robert Wagner, an athlete agent, and Mitchell.

Speaking to reporters posing as film industry executives, Wagner was recorded claiming that doping was widespread in track and field. He cited the fact that Justin Gatlin, the American sprinter who had been guided by Graham to the 2004 Olympic 100m title, had twice been sanctioned for doping and was now being coached by Mitchell.

When the AIU banned Wagner for two years in 2020, investigators also reported that he had offered to supply testosterone and human growth hormone for an actor. He said that the prescription could be acquired in his name from a doctor who already supplied him personally.

In his defence, Wagner claimed he had lied to secure a lucrative contract with the film production company, with the AIU concluding that his “misleading and untruthful statements about doping were a significant and serious violation of the Integrity Code”. Gatlin, meanwhile, sacked Mitchell as his coach.

Yet it is Gatlin who has been most vocal in his criticism of Thomas, using his podcast to fire back at the 28-year-old with a suggestion that she keep her mouth shut.

Gatlin’s lack of self-awareness was extraordinary, with the 43-year-old arguing that Thomas should have used her platform as the new Olympic champion last year if she had something to say about drug cheats. “This makes it look like you’re taking shots at someone like Melissa,” he said. “It’s all about the timing. Melissa beat her twice [this season], and is undefeated in the 100m. You should have taken a stance when you had the opportunity, when you had the golden coin in your hand. It would have been better for her to be silent right now.

“A lot of statements we see, are going to age good or bad. Right now a lot of people are speaking against how Gabby stands.”

Gatlin’s podcast co-host also hinted at a whiff of hypocrisy by raising an issue Thomas had when she was a student five years ago. She was provisionally suspended by the AIU for missing drug tests due to three “whereabouts failures” and has since admitted that she did not perhaps pay sufficient attention to the system when she was immersed in her studies.

But she escaped any form of sanction when she challenged the first missed test, stating that the doping control officer had left before the required time. Her lawyer was able to prove, using phone-tracking data and witness statements, that she was at the location specified within the allotted hour.

The truth is, Thomas is someone the sport should be celebrating for her courage and candour, especially when it was only on Friday night that news broke of a four-year ban for yet another American sprinter, Erriyon Knighton.

Thomas also called out Michael Johnson for not paying the athletes for their performances in the Grand Slam Track series when many of her contemporaries remained too afraid to complain, and she has highlighted legitimate concerns about Mitchell’s continuing involvement in athletics.

Mitchell is no longer the US sprint relay coach — the same national federation that failed to sanction him in 1998 handed him that role between 2014 and 2016 — but he guides the careers of all four American women who contested the 100m heats on Saturday evening and the same quartet are expected to pass the baton around the track for their country in the 4x100m next weekend.

If there was a desire to hear what they had to say about Thomas after they had qualified for the next round, they only seemed interested in stopping for the content creators who gather further along the interview area and tend to ask rather less probing questions.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Reading this article on the individuals involved in the US sprint teams - coaching, managing or competing - reminds one of what a mess the whole thing is. Then again, I could probably say the same for all the other top sprinters too. But having the likes of Mitchell and Gatlin involved is reminiscent of some of the dubious characters cycling keeps around.

USATF has a very long history of this. I mean, you've got Mitchell's group down in Florida, you've got Chemical Bob Kersee still knocking around with Athing Mu and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, and you've had the Oregon Project guys and girls with Salazar.

With such a strong T&F culture and depth of competition where the nationals are on a par with most continental championships in terms of depth of competition, and see athletes who star on the world circuit going up against domestic pros and collegiate athletes - many of whom never appear outside the US except at major championships and super-peak for said nationals to qualify... it's really not all that different from the same kind of system that I've commented on in Russian wintersports, where they place a disproportionate importance on selection races in the domestic scene which the athletes on the national team have to fly in for, going up against various domestic regional athletes whose coaches are all competing for prestige and preparing their athletes to peak for, in a domestic scene which is much less stringently tested than the international one, and where athletes who are successful on the international scene might then be dropped from their season's goals because they got beaten by a less strong athlete who peaked for the selection race

The difference, of course, is that a lot of the time the athletes who are qualifying from those selection races in the US are still medal capable rather than ending up just roadblocking other talents, and that the US pros on the commercial world calendar are not competing as a national team when they do so, and any issues surrounding those athletes have sufficient separation from being considered state-sponsored even if several of the most established and highly-recommended coaches in the US, who produce and manage the majority of the most successful US athletes, come with a certain reputation.

 

[Sciatic]

Reading this article on the individuals involved in the US sprint teams - coaching, managing or competing - reminds one of what a mess the whole thing is. Then again, I could probably say the same for all the other top sprinters too. But having the likes of Mitchell and Gatlin involved is reminiscent of some of the dubious characters cycling keeps around.

Thanks for posting this article. Who was the author? And I believe Thomas mispoke or was misquoted here: “Doping coaches should be banned for life from coaching in the sport." I think she meant to say that "doping coaches who were caught should be banned It's much better to have as a coach someone who got away with doping during their career

 

[Barnacle Bill]

Thanks for posting this article. Who was the author? And I believe Thomas mispoke or was misquoted here: “Doping coaches should be banned for life from coaching in the sport." I think she meant to say that "doping coaches who were caught should be banned It's much better to have as a coach someone who got away with doping during their career

No problem, it was by Matt Lawton in The Times.

 

[veganrob]

Ah, Travis. Thanks.

Tygert is ridiculous. He is such a bad joke

 

[Oldman]

It's the carbs ... shoes ... heat training ... modern training ... professionalism

Professionalism: code for Full Program in cycling.

 

[Sciatic]

Since we were discussing sprinting recently, here to note that suddenly Botswana has emerged as a sprint powerhouse: in the 3 semifinal races in the men’s 400 at world’s yesterday, Botswana athletes won 2 of the heats and finished 2nd place in other heat.

 

[Ripper]

Professionalism: code for Full Program in cycling.

Yes

And "good sensations" means "my doping is working"