Sebastian Coe Frustrated as Legal Hurdles Prevent Stripping Ruth Chepng'etich's World Record

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe expresses frustration over legal obstacles that prevent stripping a banned athlete’s world record.

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe has expressed his frustration over the legal complexities that prevent the governing body from stripping a world record from a banned athlete, calling the situation farcical.

The issue centres on Kenyan marathoner Ruth Chepng’etich, whose astonishing 2:09:56 run in Chicago in October 2024 still stands as the official world record.

Earlier this year, Ruth Chepng’etich received a three-year anti-doping ban, but her results were only annulled from March onwards.

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The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) dismissed Chepngetich's explanation that she had mistakenly taken her housemaid's medication. The AIU has also stated that it is investigating her for other potential violations.

Seb Coe: I Share Your Frustration About Ruth Chepng’etich

"I share your frustration, but I'm not a lawyer," the World Athletics president stated during a year-end media call.

"There are legal challenges where the burden of proof requires a positive test and evidence that a doping infringement was taking place at the time of the performance. If you don't have that, it's extremely difficult to extrapolate around other events.

"The AIU does everything that it possibly can, but it does also have to work within legal strictures—however frustrating that is."

Ruth Chepng’etich is among several high-profile athletes caught for doping this year, a list that includes elite American sprinters Marvin Bracy, Erriyon Knighton, and Fred Kerley, who all received suspensions.

The growing concern was echoed this week by AIU Chairman David Howman, a former director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Howman warned that the anti-doping system has stalled.

"Intentional dopers at the elite level are evading detection. We are not effective enough nowadays in catching cheats... it is hurting the anti-doping movement's credibility," he said.

While acknowledging the challenges, Seb Coe offered a more measured perspective. "I think what David is saying is that we have to go beyond," he explained.

"It's very important that all our anti-doping organisations are working absolutely optimally. We have to really focus on intelligent testing. We have got to use AI much more to be able to really turbocharge that intelligent testing and allocate resources where it's really going to matter."

Shifting to a more positive topic, Seb Coe celebrated the success of this year's World Athletics Championships in Tokyo and looked ahead to the inaugural Ultimate Championships in Budapest next September.

"It wasn't that long ago we were talking about one or two major talents, and now we are talking about a bandwidth of talent emerging across all our disciplines," he said. "This is an extraordinary era."

"In Tokyo, we had 84 countries that reached a final—the highest ever. In Tokyo in 1991, it was 47. I can't think of another sport where we would be talking about that."

Regarding the new Ultimate Championships, a condensed event featuring top-tier athletes competing in a series of finals, Seb Coe highlighted its strategic importance.

"We didn't have that one big global moment in World Athletics that we have on three of the four years. Filling the fourth year is an important concept."

"We need a billion people watching our sport on an annual basis at the right moment of the season, and we wanted to create something new and exciting for the athletes," he continued.

"We're inviting only the best of the best, and it's a historic $10 million prize pot. We really reimagined what that format to eliminate downtime can look like. We want rapidity, we want free-flowing, exciting competition over three nights. I think it will be a compelling glimpse at the future."