Peter Eriksson, former head coach of Athletics Canada, has revealed a web based petition accusing the three governing our bodies—the World Anti-Doping Company (WADA), World Athletics (WA), and the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU)—of failing to stop widespread doping within the sport of athletics.
Eriksson has requested that the three entities launch the checks and information of girls’s marathon world report holder Ruth Chepngetich, as he believes her 2:09:56 efficiency “exceeds the bounds of feminine human potential.”
In October, Chepngetich grew to become the primary lady to run underneath two hours and 10 minutes for the marathon, decreasing the earlier mark set a 12 months earlier by Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa by almost two minutes. Her report was greeted with combined evaluations, given Kenya’s ongoing doping scandal, which has greater than 100 runners serving suspensions (in accordance with the AIU World Checklist of Ineligible Individuals.)
Within the petition, Eriksson writes: “The ratification on 11 December 2024 of Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56 marathon efficiency in Chicago on 13 October 2024, which has been greeted with profound skepticism by main athletics consultants as a result of it exceeds the bounds of feminine human potential, is an embodiment and image of the abject failure of World Athletics (WA), the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), and the World Anti-Doping Company (WADA) to detect and management rampant doping in worldwide athletics.”
Eriksson additional states it’s a “…dereliction of their responsibility to guard the pursuits of and alternatives for clear athletes…”
Opinion: there must be an asterisk across the ladies’s marathon world report
World Athletics formally ratified Chepngetich’s world report in early December, simply two months after she ran it on the 2024 Chicago Marathon. This ratification confirms her marathon time was discovered to be clear.
The governing physique follows a rigorous course of to ratify all world information, together with course certification, timing accuracy and anti-doping checks. Amongst these, the anti-doping course of is the longest, often taking a number of months to acquire check outcomes from a lab.
Eriksson is asking for signatures to compel WA, AIU, and WADA to reveal all testing performed on Chepngetich within the 12 months earlier than the 2024 Chicago Marathon on Oct. 13, 2024. He’s additionally demanding that these organizations take pressing measures to get rid of doping in athletics, together with:
- “Disclosing and suspending coaches and brokers linked to athletes who check optimistic for doping.
- Enhancing testing, significantly in East Africa.
- Reporting again on the improved testing on a half-yearly foundation.
- Instantly suspending all athletes from competitors for the rest of the calendar 12 months from any nation that has greater than 10 of its athletes check optimistic through the 12 months.”
The 72-year-old took on the pinnacle coach place at Athletics Canada in August 2013, a task that included each the Paralympic and Olympic applications. The mandate for hiring Eriksson was to enhance the medal depend at main occasions, such because the Paralympic and Olympic Video games, and different main championships. From 1996 to 2013, the common medal depend for the Canadian monitor and discipline groups at main occasions was between zero and two. Beneath Eriksson’s tenure, this elevated on the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Video games in Rio, the place Workforce Canada gained six Olympic medals and 7 Paralympic medals.
He was named Athletics Canada Coach of the 12 months in 2008 and was awarded the Medal of Confederation by the Senate of Canada in 2017 for his work on the Rio Olympics.
Eriksson left the Athletics Canada place in December 2016 and labored as a high-performance adviser for Personal the Podium, a Canadian funding company for elite sports activities. Since 2021, he has labored as an impartial high-performance guide.
