EUGENE, Oregon — For the past five years, Kenya’s Lawrence Cherono has been one of the world’s top marathoners.
In 2019, he won the Boston Marathon. Again: the Boston Marathon. Is there anything more symbolic of American distance running than Boston, and #BostonStrong? That’s not a rhetorical question. Answer: no. That year, Cherono won the Chicago Marathon, too.
In 2021, Cherono finished fourth in the Tokyo Olympic marathon. Last December, he won the marathon in Valencia, Spain. This past April, he finished second in Boston. His personal best, 2:03:04, is the eighth-fastest of all time.
Kenya’s Lawrence Cherono finishing second at the 2022 Boston Marathon // Getty Images
So where is the outrage, especially from all those, especially in the United States, who went all but berserk this past February over the Russians at the Beijing Winter Games, now that the 33-year-od Cherono has been provisionally suspended for the exact same substance that then-15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva got tagged for — and under eerily similar circumstances?
The Athletics Integrity Unit announced Saturday that Cherono had been provisionally suspended after testing positive for trimetazidine, a heart medication. This is the same substance for which Valieva tested positive.
Fascinating coincidence: Cherono finished fourth in the marathon in Tokyo. What place did Valieva finish in Beijing? Fourth.
Compare these fact patterns, and note a cluster of remarkable parallels:
1. Cherono was tested May 23.This was an out-of-competition test. 2. The test was sent to the WADA-accredited lab in Lausanne, Switzerland. 3. The Lausanne lab analyzed the sample on May 27. 4. The lab notified AIU of the ‘adverse analytical finding’ — the positive — on July 13. 5. The process is supposed to take 20 days. Instead, it took 47: May 27 to July 13. 6. Cherono was traveling to Eugene and was notified of the positive upon arrival, on July 14. 7. On July 15, he offered an explanation for why he should not be suspended. It was turned down. 8. He was due to run in the world championships marathon, here on Sunday. He did not.
2. 1. Valieva was tested Dec. 25, 2021. This was an in-competition test. Valieva was taking part in the Russian national skating championships. 2. The test was sent to the WADA-accredited lab in Stockholm. 3. The Stockholm lab received the sample on December 29. 4. On February 7, the lab notified RUSADA, the Russian anti-doping agency, of an ‘adverse analytical finding.’ 5. The process is supposed to take 20 days. Instead, it took 44. 6. On February 7, before she had been notified of anything, Valieva took part in the team free skate at the Beijing Games. 7. The next day, February 8, at 11:36 a.m. Beijing time, she was told she had been provisionally suspended. 8. The day after that, February 9, after a hearing at 4:30 p.m Moscow time, RUSADA lifted the provisional suspension. 9. Thereafter, as all will remember, the following ensued: outrage, the spectacle of a teenager crumbling on the ice before a worldwide television audience, outrage and more outrage, including this in the middle of the Beijing Games from Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee:
“Athletes have the right to know they are competing on a level playing field. Unfortunately, today that right is being denied. This appears to be another chapter in the systemic and pervasive disregard for clean sport by Russia.”
In May, at the White House, more from Hirshland: “Russia needs to be sanctioned. What that is and looks like is a conversation that every sport organization continues to have.”
And: “You see news reports of Putin defending Valieva, and you question: ‘If he’s defending Valieva before the process has played itself out, how can you consider there to be integrity around the process?”
OK, same question to her but flipped: if she’s accusing Valieva before the process has played out, before all the facts have been set forth and Valieva has gotten all the process to which the teenager is due, why should Hirshland expect integrity around that process?
Meanwhile, here was the same chief executive a few weeks ago, in USA Today, when asked about her husband, a contractor for LIV Golf, the tour underwritten by the Saudi wealth fund amid significant human rights concerns:
“In my role as CEO of the USOPC, and supporter of the Olympic and Paralympic movements, I am steadfast in my resolve to uphold the ideals of the Olympic values. I will always advocate for sport as a pathway to peace and understanding among communities and cultures.”
“Always.” Except when crusading long and loud for Russia to be sanctioned?
One of my journalistic heroes, the Chicago newsman Mike Royko, was consistently on the lookout for public officials or public figures he could catch being disingenuous, dishonest or untrustworthy in their on-the-job performance. Ask: isn’t this a classic?
Some relevant points worth noting before going forward.
The Valieva matter exploded onto the world stage before Russia invaded Ukraine. So to compare the Cherono matter with the Valieva case is apples to apples — the focus here is only on doping.
As for process, Cherono is 33 and Valieva, when she was tested, to repeat, 15. That made her, under the rules, a “protected person.” If she is found liable, whatever sanction she might receive is very likely to be significantly reduced, perhaps even a reprimand.
Because she is a “protected person” under the rules, her name should never have been made public in the first instance.
The criticism here naturally will be that doping in Russia is linked with the state.
But to suggest that Kenya is an innocent player in world sport would be the height of naivete. Indeed, WADA in recent years commissioned a special project examining doping in Kenya — reporting that between 2004 and August 1, 2018, 138 Kenyan athletes across all sports tested positive for banned substances.
Trimetazidine does not appear in this report. Makes you wonder what the AIU knows now?
Meanwhile, nandrolone sure does.: 23 times. That’s the substance that American distance champion Shelby Houlihan got tagged for. Her coach, Jerry Schumacher, said he had never heard of it. WADA said in this report that nandrolone accounted for 49 of the 138 positives, a full 35 percent.
As WADA pointed out in this report, nandrolone “is a drug that promotes power and muscle strength.” Distance running accounted for 131 of the 138 Kenyan tests, 95 percent.
Does it make sense that a purportedly world-class coach whose very job it is to know what’s going on in the sport would not know about nandrolone? By extension, about this report?
In September 2018, when the WADA report was released and made headlines, the Olympic news website Inside the Games helpfully reminded readers: 18 Kenyans were at the time suspended after action by the AIU, including three-time Boston Marathon champion Rita Jeptoo; Rio 2016 marathon gold medalist Jemima Sumgong; and world 800 bronze medalist Kipyegon Bett.
Common sense says it’s a coach’s job to be up on that sort of thing, yes? And this is two years before Houlihan tested positive (on Dec. 15, 2020).
Yet on July 11, Schumacher was named head track and field coach at the University of Oregon, here in Eugene, home of distance running legends, the next face of (the local marketing spin) TrackTown USA. How did that happen? If it defies credulity that an international coach at the highest level says he doesn’t know what nandrolone is, shouldn’t it also defy credulity that he should be entrusted with coaching the next generation of elite athletes?
Do you think when coaches and sports officials from other countries assess what’s happening in these United States they sniff a strong whiff of hypocrisy? They perhaps sense a remarkable double standard?
Speaking of which:
In recent years, the United States Anti-Doping Agency spent considerable political capital trying to remake WADA, alleging that United States money was essential and American ways were better.
What this effort did, mostly, was aggravate senior officials in the anti-doping and Olympic space. The United States does not get to make the rules. Some people in this country suffer from the misperception that this is the case. It is not the case. The rules are the rules. For everyone.
This brings us to:
Over the past two years, these American track standouts have found themselves entangled with the doping code, these matters brought via the AIU, not USADA:
— Houlihan, found liable of having nandrolone in her system, arguing it was from a burrito (four years off starting from Jan. 14, 2021)
— Christian Coleman, whereabouts violations (he has finished his time off and finished sixth in Saturday’s men’s 100). A note about the Coleman matter: the AIU stepped in after USADA gave Coleman an out earlier
— Brianna McNeal, the Rio 2016 100-meter hurdles gold medalist, tampering with evidence matter (got five years starting from Aug. 15, 2020)
— Randolph Ross, the current back-to-back NCAA champion in the men’s 400. In the same release Saturday announcing the Cherono matter, the AIU said it had charged Ross with tampering following an unsuccessful testing try on June 18.
Ross had finished third at the U.S. nationals and was due to compete here at the worlds. Now he will not.
The Oregonian newspaper, in a July 3 story, quoted Travis Tygart, USADA’s chief executive, as saying he fears Houlihan’s case “may be one of a growing number of ‘innocent positives.’” The paper sought to draw a comparison between the Houlihan case and one involving Brenda Martinez, an 800-meter standout who won a silver at the 2013 worlds in Moscow; USADA chose not to pursue a penalty in the Martinez matter after she tested positive for an antidepressant.
“We know that these innocent sources are out there,” Tygart told the paper. “We need to work just as hard to exonerate the innocent as we do pursuing the true cheaters.”
Four high-profile U.S. track athletes in two years! To reiterate:
An American record-holder. A world champion. An Olympic gold medalist. A two-time NCAA champion.
So — these questions.
Where is the acknowledgment from U.S. officials that our own house has issues?
Maybe the AIU is stepping in because there’s a perception that American athletes are getting away with stuff?
And while there can be a place for rhetoric, perhaps there should be a recognition, too, that it’s just unhelpful talk when real work is to be done?
To, you know, make sure there is integrity around the process?