2:09:56

Photo of Ruth Chepng’etich by Christian Rasmussen

2:09:56

Words Jeff Merrill

In 2006, Deena Kastor strode into the finishing straight of the London Marathon, flanked by Buckingham Palace victorious. Her time of 2:19:36 eclipsed her own American Record of 2:21:16 set in 2003. Before that, the record of 2:21:21 had been held by the great Joan Benoit Samuelson since 1985. Kastor’s London finishing time situated her 4 minutes and change behind the world record of 2:15:25, then held by Brit, Paula Ratcliffe.

Now Kastor sat on the back of a motorbike 5 miles into the Chicago Marathon, describing for the TV audience and her team of analysts back at the studio what she was seeing.

“I know you’re asking about the lead women, but we are also with the leaders of team USA [men] up here, Zach Panning and CJ Albertson, also projected to run 2:06… as Ruth Chepng’etich continues to set a blistering pace.”

Since Ruth Chepng’etich’s world record run of 2:09.56 in Chicago last week, the running world has been attempting to come to terms with what it means to the broader sport, and to try to understand how such a significant drop is possible, not just for Chepng’etich, who slashed over 4 minutes from her previous best, but for the progression of the women’s marathon world record and it’s statistical relationship to the men’s mark. Last year in Berlin, Tigist Assefa, a former 800m runner, cut 2 minutes and 11 seconds from the previous record, running 2:11:53. In Chicago, on the same course that Kelvin Kiptum took 34 seconds off the men’s world record last year, Chepng’etich and her pacemakers hammered the pace from the start to chop another 1:57 from the record that was 2:14:04 only a year and a half ago.

The performance, set against the backdrop of 180 doping sanctions handed down to Kenyan athletes since 2017 has been chewed over with suspicion. Last week, a member of the Kenyan parliament demanded an apology from Letsrun.com’s Robert Johnson for asking Chepng’etich what she would say to fans questioning whether her performance was too good to be true. Amby Burfoot was more direct, outright accusing Chepng’etich, claiming that the run had to be a product of doping because at only 7.75% slower than the men’s world record, it fell far below the 10% we’ve come to expect to separate men’s and women’s records across distances.

Over the past 8 years, the ground has shifted beneath our feet with the advance of shoe tech, the continued advancement and spread of training techniques, better fueling, etc. etc. It is difficult to suss out the impact of any factor independent of another, but the cumulative effect has left us feeling like we’re floating in space, unmoored from the framework of times, efforts and records that had previously grounded us. And then there is the question of performance enhancing drugs.

What many fans have been grappling with over the past week is something that we’ve become accustomed to when we see incredible performances- the question of whether to celebrate the accomplishment, or to be suspicious.

We’re in a place where the many factors influencing performances make it difficult to know what is achieved legally and what isn’t. The difficult reality is that the only time we can know with relative certainty about the validity of any performance is when it is proven invalid, and that could take years. Shannon Rowbury was informed this year that she had been moved up to the bronze medal position for the 2012 Olympic 1500m. She had initially been the 6th finisher to cross the line.

The athletes who use performance enhancing drugs do a disservice not only to the athletes who finish behind them, but to all athletes competing, placing a cloud of suspicion around every performance. I do not know whether Ruth Chepng’etich’s record run was real or not, just as I cannot know the validity of any performance, so like many fans of the sport, I choose to believe it until I am faced with contrary information.  But as incredible as it was, I don’t believe it will last. It will be broken again, and times will continue to fall.

Bob Costas was asked about why pitchers were seemingly better against batters in the early days of baseball than they are now. His response, after describing big contractual investments in athletes and wanting to preserve their health by not playing them as much was:

“This is true in the early stages of any sport. The greatest players are more dominant against the average players because the overall quality has not caught up.”

When there are fewer data points, there are greater outliers.

There are many factors weighing on women’s sports that do not exist for men’s. Women’s sport as a whole is a comparatively recent phenomenon, and even when women began to play sports more regularly, it is not as if the gates flung open, societal pressures were alleviated, incentives equalized and social norms evaporated.

Title IX, the landmark piece of legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in education and athletics was only passed in 1972. Five years before that, Katherine Switzer had to disguise herself to enter the Boston Marathon and physically fight to stay in the race simply to finish. By this time, men who stepped to the plate to lob balls over outfield fences had been lauded as heroes bordering god status for close to a century.

When Teri Mariani started playing sports at Portland State University in the 1970’s, she had to have a paper bag placed over her head to access the training room through the men’s locker room.

The contrasting nature of men’s and women’s sports at this time likely yielded two very differently sized groups aspiring to participate, Their routes to success were differently obstacled, and a mountain existed between what they could achieve at their heights.

Access is one thing. Shifting the culture to encourage participation and incentivize achievement is another.

On September 1st of this year, Ruth Cheptegei, a Ugandan Olympian marathoner living and training in Kenya was brutally murdered, when during an argument with a partner with whom she had been separated, he doused her in gasoline and set her on fire. In Sarah Gearhart’s article for Outside Magazine, she writes-

“Cheptegei’s murder follows a pattern of femicide within the Kenyan elite women’s marathoning community.”

The horrific act called up the not so distant memory of the murder of world championship medalist Agnes Tirop allegedly at the hands of her husband, who stabbed her repeatedly in the neck and abdomen in 2021.

There are places in the world where women do not have the opportunity to participate in sports period, there are places where women can participate in limited capacities under restrictive guidelines, and everywhere, to some extent, the barrier of entry is a societal pressure or long-held idea of what ’a woman's place’ is in any given culture. Even if atrocities committed against women are not the direct result of their participation in sport, it is likely a deterrent to stand out in a place where they are known to occur. Not to mention the emotional and physiological burden carried while training and competing. No culture is absent from it.

Kenya, the home of the world’s top marathoners, Gearhart writes has “one of the highest percentages of gender based violence in the world. More than 40% of women will experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime”.

The prospect of succeeding carries with it questions about how success might be received and subsequent decisions are likely made based on self preservation, whether that is an avoidance of an uncomfortable feeling, physical danger, or simply choosing a different path outside of sport that yields greater rewards.

As many advancements as we have made in women’s sport in the past 50 years, there are still more walls to tear down. Women who currently compete in sport at any level, in any culture are trailblazers, and it is important for their successes to be seen, to encourage the entrance and continuation of women and girls in sport.

Of the many issues at hand, the question that they amount to as it pertains to the success of women in sports and their relation to men’s performances, is a statistical one.

If everyone in the world trained to run as fast as they could in the marathon, would the world records be what they are today?

After you’ve answered this question, ask yourself again which gender faces more obstacles to success.

The question is not ignoring the barriers to entry that exist for men, nor is it implying that men’s and women’s records would be equal if all barriers were lifted, but it is unlikely that in our current era of distance running, all of the very best female athletes have an equal opportunity to be the best that they can possibly be, or that they are even competing.

In 2022, Nike launched a program to support 120 American women in their quest to qualify for the US Olympic Marathon Trials. ‘Project Dreamweaver’ provided coaching advice, cutting edge products, access to personalized training and scientific analysis throughout their journey. By the 2024 Olympic Trials, Gabi Rooker, a former collegiate gymnast who ran 2:56 in 2021 for her first marathon, had run 2:24- a time that placed her in contention to make the US Olympic team, which Nike deemed worthy of offering her a sponsorship deal.

My assessment of the question is that I am less sure that the men’s world record would be significantly faster than Kiptum’s current 2:00.35, but I would bet that the women’s world record would be faster.

As barriers continue to be lifted, opportunities continue to be created and women are not only encouraged to participate, but incentivized, inspired and motivated to dive into competition without fear of judgment or retaliation, we will continue to see records fall across the board.