The China Mail - Coe shares 'frustration' over marathon record despite Kenyan's doping ban

Chepngetich's achievements and records pre-dating the incriminating sample she gave in March 2025 still stand, including the world record of 2hr 09min 56sec set at the 2024 Chicago marathon.

Coe, reviewing the athletics year with agency reporters this week, said legal constraints prevented the 31-year-old being stripped of her record.

"I'm not a lawyer mercifully but there are some legal challenges, of course, that the burden of proof can only be a positive test and evidence that a doping infringement was taking place at the time that the performance was made," said the two-time 1500 metres Olympic champion.

"Yes, there are frustrations and I share that view but I am advised on good legal authority.

"It is extremely difficult to do a retrospective assessment if you don't have the ability to absolutely... demonstrate that that was a performance-enhanced outing."

Coe, who along with his federation's decision-making Council, has been Ukraine's most high-profile supporter among sports governing bodies by imposing a blanket ban on Russian athletes, admitted the battle against doping was never-ending but there "is a recognition amongst athletes -- and this is an important recognition -- that you know there is no fear or favour".

High-profile athletes and powerful federations with "the sort of political powers you had in the past, that counts for absolutely nothing now," said the former British Conservative lawmaker.

"It's a very, very different landscape. Is it a perfect landscape? No, of course it isn't.

"I've always made this point that we're never going to get to the Elysian Fields of this."

Coe said he and the Athletics Integrity Unit he set up to conduct drug testing in the sport "wake up each day trying to figure out how to be better at this".

"We've got to go beyond just simple compliance or minimum requirements here. We've got to reach for the stars... literally."

- 'Welcome innovation' -

Coe said he took pleasure from a successful world championships in Tokyo in September, with seven of the nine evening sessions sold out and the morning sessions also boasting healthy attendances.

This was in stark contrast to the catastrophe that befell Grand Slam Track, fronted by track legend Michael Johnson. The mini-circuit has filed for bankruptcy after a disastrous first season, leaving athletes fearing they will never receive their prize money.

The all-women event Athlos, financed by Serena Williams's wealthy husband and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, appears to have been more of a success after two editions.

Coe said WA and Athlos have a "very good relationship" and are keen to understand the "complexities of what they're doing" but he refused to address Grand Slam's fall from grace directly.

However, he said while he welcomed innovation in track and field, it has to be "underpinned by really solid financial models".

"We will always welcome innovation and investment in our sport," Coe said.

"Because that tells me that if you've got organisations that do actually want to invest in your sport then you're doing something right.

"But innovation has to be underpinned.. by really solid financial models. (By) operational execution of the highest level."

Coe, 69, said that was why World Athletics was leaving nothing to chance with the preparations for the inaugural edition of the Ultimate Championship in Budapest next September.

"We're now into the third year of preparation," he said. "They are working absolutely flat out to do everything they possibly can to deliver an Ultimate Championship which... creates something new and exciting for the athletes.

"It has to be suffused in reality. It has to be a financial business plan that is absolutely robust.

"If you don't get those ingredients right then the only people that really suffer are the athletes.

"That's not really what I came into the sport to risk."

U.Feng--ThChM