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Track and Field World Championships Updates: Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia Wins Men’s Marathon


Galen Rupp is the greatest American distance runner of the 21st century.

Galen Rupp is a mystery: media shy, and once the runner-up of a team led, marathon champion turned disgraced coach Alberto Salazarviolated sport in many ways.

Galen Rupp is a hero, especially in his home state of Oregon, where the World Athletics Championships kicks off this week, where he’s just the fastest teenager anyone has ever seen, running say something in America’s unofficial activism capital.

Galen Rupp is a cautionary tale, a lesson in the cost of loyalty in a sport where athletes must prove their innocence every day. And even if they do, the association with someone who has been convicted of fraud can keep their eyebrows raised forever.

Galen Rupp, the now 36-year-old former teen, is poised to hit the starting line in Sunday’s men’s marathon at the World Championships, a chance to cement his legacy at home.

He is all of that, and more.

He is a fierce and fearless competitor, ready and willing to push his field on track and road if necessary. He is the champion at the most important distances in distance running, so dominant in the US marathon since 2016 that national competitions became the race for second place and Tuesday.

Credit…Patrick Smith / Getty Images

He knows how to find the podium, whether it’s a fast or slow race or a test of speed or tactics.

He’s enduring, with a career that spanned the second half of its second decade rife with injuries, but nothing has stopped him from challenging in the biggest races and often at the lap. final.

However, fair or unfair, he embodies the elite running in a state of associational inferiority that has persisted for decades.

“Every athlete has the right to be presumed innocent, unless and until proven guilty through legal process,” said Travis Tygart, executive director at the US Anti-Doping Agency. that they violated. “It’s not fair to convict any other athlete, but the reality is, in today’s world, it’s the same lesson I tell my kids, your choices have consequences, and they don’t. Everyone accepts that principle, and whichever one you hang out with, you’ll be seen by the company you hold. “

Weldon Johnson, once one of the top distance runners in the country and co-founder of Letsrun.com, the influencer website that is considered a blockbuster for American running, said the association will cause distrust.

“I think we should judge his career like everyone else but with more skepticism because an athlete is more closely associated with Alberto than anyone else and that is Galen Rupp,” Johnson said. last week. “Based on performance, he’s the greatest American male long-distance runner of his generation, probably since Steve Prefontaine.”

Rupp’s agent, Ricky Simms, refused to provide him with this article, having never failed a drug test. There were a lot of them, both regularly scheduled ones at races and random tests, out of which all international athletes had to randomly submit.

Salazar, a former men’s marathon world record holder, three-time New York champion and 1982 Boston champion, discovered Rupp while watching him play high school football in Portland, Ore. , believes that the combination of speed and endurance translates into superior distance running.

In 2001, Salazar founded Nike Oregon Projecta track team specifically focused on developing athletes – especially Rupp after attending the University of Oregon and for a short time, Mo Farah of Britain – who could defeat the dominant East Africans in the biggest meeting.

It worked. On a magical Saturday night in London at the 2012 Olympics, Farah and Rupp sprint past mighty Kenyans and Ethiopians to the finish line 1-2 in the 10,000 meter race. A week later, Farah also won a gold medal in 5,000, while Rupp on Saturday. Rupp went on to win marathons at the US Olympics in 2016 and 2020, making a mark in both races. He won bronze in the marathon at the 2016 Games. He also won the Chicago Marathon, one of the fastest in the world, in 2017.

Credit…Jed Jacobsohn for The New York Times

In 2019, after years of investigation and litigation, Salazar received a 4-year ban from the United States Anti-Doping Agency for a variety of doping-related crimes, including trafficking testosterone and tampering with doping control procedures.

That same year, Salazar came under close scrutiny after two female athletes he coached, Mary Cain and Amy Yoder Begleytell him publicly mocked and humiliated them when they ran for the Oregon Project. Last year, an arbitrator for the US Center for SafeSport ruled that it was “more likely than not” that Salazar had digitally penetrated one of his athletes during a massage. The Centre, which is responsible for investigating and adjudicating such cases, ban him from playing sports for life.

Nike decided in 2019 to Closing the Oregon Project. Rupp is currently training with Mike Smith, a coach at Northern Arizona University.

No one thinks that Salazar’s treatment of his female athletes in any way will affect what Rupp has achieved. But running has a long and bad history of doping violations that participants, fans, officials and historians must navigate its fraught terrain. Nearly every great champion, even those who have never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, has a connection to a coach, friend, teammate or physiotherapist, who broke the world’s anti-doping rules.

“Rupp is the greatest American distance runner of all time,” said Amby Burfoot, a 1968 Boston Marathon champion and former editor of Runner’s World. “He was awkward – not very media friendly – and, yes, had a connection to Alberto. But he’s been at the top for an unbelievably long time, almost two decades, has never failed any test that I know of, and has almost always performed his best in competitions. big exam. “

Credit…Ryan Kang / Associated Press

can he do it again?

Rupp foregoes the pay he might get for running one of the major marathons in the spring to focus on the single shot of his career winning the marathon world championship in his hometown.

The dents on his armor are now chronic. He told Runner’s World last month that he had been battling back pain for a year, and in the spring, doctors diagnosed him with a herniated disc and a pinched nerve. He had Covid-19 last month.

Like most elite athletes, Rupp knows a strange fact is an inevitable part of the pursuit he has chosen – racing is never as simple as he could have hoped. And when the shot comes on Sunday morning in another big race, he’ll be off again.



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