The hue and cry about Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56 women’s world marathon record in last Sunday’s Bank of America Chicago Marathon is not toning down. Poor John Korir, his 2:02:44 victory in the men’s race, has been completely overshadowed. But why wouldn’t it be, considering the magnitude of the women’s time?

I received an email from Amby Burfoot, 1968 Boston Marathon champion and ex-Runners World executive editor, asking if I was going to write anything about the Chepngetich record, before realizing, “oh, I see that you have written something supportive. Too bad.”

Amby continued, “I’ve just written a screed comparing it to Rosie 1980 (when Ms. Ruiz was initially declared the Boston Marathon champion only to have the title stripped from her one week later when officials definitively proved she did not run the entire distance).” We had no evidence(then),” wrote Amby, “but we knew it was wrong. I’m hoping others will join me.” 

Yes, there are many red flags fluttering after history’s first women’s sub-2:10 marathon. A near five minute personal best at the most elite level is eye-opening. But Bill Rodgers took 10 minutes off his personal best at the 1975 Boston Marathon, going from 2:19 to 2:09.

For starters, Ruth ran personal bests at 5K (15:00), 10K (30:14) and a near-PB half marathon in route to her world record. Her 64:16 at halfway was the fifth fastest half ever run! Her second half of 65:40 was only nine seconds slower than Steve Jones’s second half in Chicago 1985 when he posted his 2:07:13 near world record! Steve’s 1:01:42  first half was the eighth fastest men’s half marathon ever run at the time. 

Also, Ms. Chepngetich’s manager, Federico Rosa, has had many of his athletes found guilty of PED use in the last decade, including multiple Boston and Chicago champion Rita Jeptoo and 2016 Rio Olympic champion, Jemima Sumgong. But in November 2016, a Kenyan court terminated a doping case against the Italian agent, ruling they lacked sufficient evidence to proceed. The fact that major events of the world continue to recruit Rosa athletes makes clear their opinion on the matter.

But let’s explore record comparisons.

Paula Radcliffe‘s other-worldly 2:15:25 in London 2003 only broke her own previous mark from Chicago 2002 by 1:53. Before that, we have to go back to Beth Bonner, breaking her own world record from Philadelphia in May 1971 in New York that fall by 5:50, taking her time down to 2:55:22. Then Cheryl Bridges knocked 5:42 off Beth’s time with her 2:49:40 in Culver City at the Western Hemisphere Marathon in December 1971. (1971 was an active year for women)

The biggest margin since then was when Norway’s Grete Waitz, took her own record in New York City in 1979. There, her 2:27:33 ripped 4:57 off her debut world record from the year before.

Next we go to Joan Benoit’s 2:22:43 in Boston 1983 (when Boston still counted as a record-eligible course). On 2:17 pace through halfway, Benoit reduced Grete’s previous world record from London the day before by 2:46. Tigst Assefa’s 2:11:53 in Berlin 2023 rubbed out Brigid Kosgei’s 2:14:04 from Chicago 2019 by 2:11. And now Ruth Chepngetich has taken Assefa’s time down by 1:57. Those reductions are all of a similar order, nothing unusual. In my previous post, ANOTHER WORLD RECORD FALLS IN CHICAGO, I listed the percentage drops in each of the women’s world records. 

To summarize: Ruth Chepngetich cut 1.5% off Tigst Assefa’s 2:11:53, while Assefa chopped 1.65% from Brigid Kosgei’s 2:14:04.

If you look at the record books, Ruth Chepngetich isn’t some chubby-thigh’d Rosie Ruiz outlier. If anyone is (minus the chubby thighs), it is Paula Radcliffe. Of the top 100 women’s marathon times ever run, only Paula’s 2003 world record from London at 2:15:25 remains in the top 10 from the pre-super shoe era. In fact, Paula has three times in the top 100 beside No. 7’s 2:15. She also has No. 29’s 2:17:18 from Chicago 2002, and No. 39’s 2:17:42 from London 2005. Catherine Ndereba’s  2:18:47 from Chicago 2001, resting at No. 90, remains the only other pre-super shoes performance in the top 100 besides Paula’s three.

Naoko Takahashi’s original 2:19:46 from Berlin 2001, stands at No. 149 on the all-time list today. Every other top 100 time has been run from 2017 on. That’s been the major problem with the super-shoe era. It has pulled us free from our past. You can’t look at today with yesterday’s fact-base. Doesn’t apply anymore. So 2:09 looks crazy. But so did 2:15, 2:14, and 2:11. 

The evidence points conclusively to only one thing shared by the top times, super shoes (besides Paula and Catherine). We can’t say that about drugs, bicarbonate of soda, only super-shoes.

Of course, all this current doubting is a natural reaction to the epidemic of drug positives coming out of Kenya in recent years. Once thought of as an Eden before Adam, where raw talent, poverty, and a high altitude lifestyle led to a pristine oasis producing times unmatched in the rest of the world, Kenya is now viewed just another nation corrupted by the lure of quick riches. 

Besides New York City, Boston, the World Championships, and the Olympics, there are no open competitions without pacers that produce fast times. All the fast times come out of Chicago, Berlin, Valencia, London, Tokyo, Dubai, Nagoya, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. When Chicago experimented with dropping pacers a decade ago, the winning men’s times instantly reverted from 2:04 to 2:09. Officials quickly placed pacers back in the front row.  

In non-paced races, time is not a consideration before the race; it is determined by the race. The race is the focus, while the time is what it took. As an example, look at the Doha World Championships in 2019, where, under stifling heat and humidity, Ruth Chepngetich won the gold medal in 2:32:43. 

There are also some who have a hard time accepting a sub-2:10 by a woman because 2:10 was always a magical number in the marathon world. It’s the time Frank Shorter never broke and Bill Rodgers only did twice. 

There has also been progression since Paula’s 2:15:25 in 2003. Since then, five other women have gone beyond Paula’s once impregnable record. 

I led the cry – DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? – when Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana won the Olympic 10,000m final in Rio 2016 in a world record 29:17.45. Since then, four other women have gone faster, and none of them have been caught using drugs.

Paula Ratcliffe, an outspoken anti-drug advocate, was never popped for drugs. Brigid Kosgei, who broke Paula’s record in Chicago 2019, was never popped for drugs. And Tigst Assefa, who ran the 2:11:53 in Berlin last year, remains clear as well. So too, Sifan Hassan, whose exploits in Paris this last summer in the Olympic Games were every bit as astonishing as what Ruth Chepngetich did in Chicago last Sunday.

In this brave (depraved) New World, there is no respect for the marathon distance anymore, especially in the super-shoe era. No one is afraid of the distance. It’s not an endurance event in the same sense we once knew it.  I’ve written about this several times. 

If you’re going to run a specific time, you first have to conceive of the possibility, then prepare for the effort. The pacers have to be set up to go at that speed right from the gun. 

Ruth Chepngetich was not in Chicago to win the race last Sunday. She had already accomplished that twice before (2021 & 2022). In the last two BofA Chicago Marathons, she has taken serious runs at the world record, passing halfway sub-66:00 both times, only to fade to 2:14:18 win in 2022, 14 seconds shy of Brigid Kosgei’s record. Then,  she finished a fast second to Sifan Hassan in 2023, 2:15:37 to 2:13:44.

Chepngetich wasn’t in Chicago last Sunday to break the world record by running a low 2:11, either. Self-coached, training in Ngong outside Nairobi with a male pacer, she trained to break 2:10, because that’s what she told her pacers to run. There had to be an intention.

And if you look at the top 10 times ever produced, only Ruth Chepngetich had two previous marks on the list. No. 4 from Chicago 2022 when she ran 2:14:18 to win. And 2:15:37 in Chicago 2023 that sits at number seven, where she finished in second place. In all, she’s started 14 marathons, finished twelve, won 9.

The late Harvard paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould, famously proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium in 1972. This theory of evolutionary biology states that species undergo long periods of stasis, followed by short periods of rapid change. 

Is it beyond belief to suggest that such a punctuated equilibrium exists in the world of sport, as well? 

All of which is not to say that Ruth Chepngetich wasn’t juiced to the gills in Chicago. It’s just to say that, if she was, she must also have some mighty big balls, too, since she had to know this record was going to be scrutinized up one side and down the next. Plus, according to her manager, Ruth switched out her Vaporfly Nikes for the new, more efficient Alphafly model in 2024, and for the first time, consumed Maurten sodium bicarbonate during the competition, which is the new rage in reducing muscle acidity and, therefore, is said to delay muscle fatigue. 

Perhaps it’s a cop-out, but I have adopted the Three Monkeys Rule in relation to the current state of running: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil until all the evidence is in. It’s the only way to be fair to the athletes, and manage the current nihilism that reduces everything to doubt or a financial transaction.

I encourage further scrutiny and have inquiries out to Carey Pinkowski, the executive Director of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, and to Federico Rosa, Ruth Chepngetich’s manager. But skepticism notwithstanding, I close with a quote from Professor Gould: “Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview – nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, or destructive of openness to novelty.”

And so it goes. Onward, blindly, into the unknown.

END

ADDENDUM: 17 July 2025

Today, marathon world record holder, Ruth Chepngetich, has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) due to a doping violation.

Ms. Chepngetich tested positive for hydrochlorothlazide, (HCTZ), a banned diurectic used as a masking agent to conceal the presence of other prohibited substances.

The sample was collected in an out-of-competition test on 14 March 2025. It revealed a concentration of 3800 ng/ml, far exceeding the WADA reporting threshold of 20 ng/ml.

Chepngetich, who ran 2:09:56 in Chicago in October 2024, to break the existing women’s world record by 1:57, while winning her third Chicago title to go along with the 2019 World Championship Marathon title in Doha 2019, accepted a voluntary provisional suspension on 19 April. AIU has since imposed its own provisional suspension. If found guilty, Chepngetich faces a standard two-year ban, although that can be adjusted on the outcome of her case.

She also has the right to a hearing before a Disciplinary Tribunal. This case has implications for the Kenyan women’s marathon team for this September’s World T & F Championships in Tokyo.

As of 31 December 2024, a report stated 119 Kenyan athletes were on the AIU’s ineligible list. This number was a significant increase from the 54 two years ago. In June 2025, Daniel Kinyanjui was banned for five years. In June 2024, the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) provisionally suspended 26 athletes, including 10km world record holder Rhonex Kipruto, who received a six-year suspension.