Opinion: Why It’s Hard To Trust Ruth Chepngetich’s Marathon World Record

(Editor’s note: we recommend reading this piece in tandem with our other piece: Here’s Why Ruth Chepngetich’s World Record Is Completely Plausible)

Ruth Chepngetich’s epic 2:09:56 world record in the Chicago Marathon on Sunday was unequivocally the greatest marathon performance of all time.

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.

First, let’s look at the comparative data. Chepngetich’s performance is only about 7.75% slower than Kelvin Kiptum’s men’s marathon world record. It should be 10 to 11% slower, like all the other male-female differentials in the running record books. There’s a massive amount of data behind these percentages, and historically any small variation amounts to a highly suspect performance.

You could argue that Chepngetich has a robust career with many great marathon performances to support her, as she has now won Chicago three times: in 2021, 2022 and this year. She’s also put up seven of the top 100 fastest times in history, including her previous personal best of 2:14:18, when she won the Chicago Marathon two years ago. I agree with that history. But I disagree that it amounts to supporting evidence that we should just blindly place trust in this new world record.

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All veteran runners understand that it’s impossibly difficult to improve after you have reached a sustained high level deep into your career, as Chepngetich has at age 30, with 15 marathons raced at a high level since 2017. On Sunday, the Chepngetich knocked almost five minutes off her previous best. That sort of improvement just doesn’t happen after clearly peaking, as she has at this point in her career.

It just doesn’t happen.

Can you imagine American record holder Emily Sisson or rival Keira D’Amato improving from 2:18 to 2:13 at this stage in their respective development as marathoners? I can’t. (And neither can they.)

Look at Eliud Kipchoge’s slow dramatic improvements over a decade. He knocked off a minute here, and two minutes there. He started as a 2:05 marathoner back in 2013 and ended up 10 years later as a 2:01 marathoner. That’s the kind of gradual, hard-earned improvement that makes you a widely beloved folk hero.

Chepngetich? Nope.

There have been far too many doping busts in Kenya in the last several years. That doesn’t make Chepngetich guilty, but it casts a long shadow. Thirty years ago I thought Kenyans were the cleanest runners on the planet. That was then. This is a different (and worse) era.

Those caught and penalized include former Olympic champions, former Boston Marathon winners, and former world record holders. A very long shadow.

Here’s my last statistical argument. As Mark Twain said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Others will use the plethora of running statistics to argue that Chepngetich ran a fair, legal marathon.

Don’t believe them.

The best predictors of any runner’s performance are their most recent races. So what has Chepngetich done in 2024? As far as we know, she ran the London Marathon last April in 2:24:36, for ninth place. Then, seven weeks before Chicago, she won a half-marathon in cool, wintry Buenos Aires in 1:05:58.

That’s exactly what Chenpngetich should be running. It’s roughly equivalent to a 2:18 marathon.

So how did she run 2:09:56 in Chicago? How did she go out at 2:06 pace, and pass the half marathon in 64:16? When Tigist Assefa ran 2:11:53 last year in Berlin, setting the previous record, she at least had the good sense to run negative splits. 

But Chepngetich violated the principle rule of marathon physiology, by going out at a ridiculously unsustainable pace — and she still set a massive world record. It just doesn’t add up.

There are a couple of more points that need to be made here. The first: women runners deserve better than this. The second: Women runners deserve better than this.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a 2:25 female marathoner hoping to qualify for the next Olympics, or a recreational runner  hoping to finish your first marathon. You deserve better.

In the first case, you deserve to be competing on a level playing field. In the second case, you deserve to believe that your sport is jam-packed with the most incredible history and stories in the entire sporting world – from Roberta Gibb to Kathrine Switzer to Joan Benoit to Oprah Winfrey to today’s fantastic runners.

Back in 1980, I was at the Boston Marathon finish line when Rosie Ruiz came in huffing and puffing, breaking the tape. We runners all knew immediately that she was a fraud. We had no proof. But we knew. Perhaps it was because we were marathoners ourselves, and we know our sport. 

It took the Boston Athletic Association, which runs the Marathon, more than a week to disqualify Ruiz; but my friends and I knew the truth immediately. We had to stay mostly quiet in that interim period because it’s not cool to judge someone without evidence. But we knew.

I feel as though I’m now in the same situation with Ruth Chepngetich. But I’m not staying quiet this time around. Sorry. We don’t have proof, but we know what we know.

Women’s running has been down this road before. The record books still include East German cheats, the impossible Florence Griffith Joyner, and the inscrutable Chinese women runners of 1993. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 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.

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Editor’s note: a version of this opinion piece also appeared in Amby’s newsletter.