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W<\/span>hen Ruth Chepngetich annihilated the women\u2019s marathon world record in Chicago two years ago today, NBC\u2019s commentators compared it to the moon landing<\/a>. \u201cBring it on Neil Armstrong!\u201d cried one. \u201cShe has done things in this sport that we have not seen,\u201d said another. \u201cUnbelievable!\u201d<\/p>\n That was a word others reached for too after the Kenyan had crossed the line in 2hr 9min 56sec, a time that not only smashed the world record by 1min 57sec, but her personal best by a staggering five minutes. Afterwards she was asked by Robert Johnson of Let\u2019s Run<\/a> what her response was to those who believed she must be doping. \u201cPeople must talk,\u201d she replied. \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n We know a lot more now. Because five months after that epic run, Chepngetich\u2019s star came crashing down to earth. First she failed a doping test. Then she was banned for three years<\/a>. These days people in the sport talk about her reluctantly, like a family member who has joined a mysterious cult. Yet her world record still stands because she passed a test after the race itself.<\/p>\n What should we think of this? What are we allowed legally to say about this? And what, if anything, can be done about it?<\/p>\n A couple of weeks ago, I spoke to Brett Clothier, the head of the Athletics<\/a> Integrity Unit, which prosecuted the case against Chepngetich, to ask about her world record. \u201cIt is not satisfactory, to be frank,\u201d he admitted. \u201cBut the world anti-doping code is pretty clearcut on the rights athletes have, even if they\u2019re found guilty of a doping offence.\u201d<\/p>\n That much is true. But while legally Chepngetich was clean when she broke her world record, the fact it stands surely damages the sport\u2019s credibility.<\/p>\n True, there are plenty of highly suspicious records from the 80s and early 90s, given what we know about state-sponsored doping behind the iron curtain and in China. And if you believe Florence Griffith Joyner knocked more than half a second<\/a> off her 100m and 200m times in 1988 by doing 5,000 sit-ups a day and drinking water, I have some magic beans to sell you.<\/p>\n Griffith Joyner, of course, never tested positive. But before her death aged 38, her fellow American sprinter Darrell Robinson claimed in a paid interview with the German magazine Stern that he had sold her human growth hormone for $2,000.<\/p>\n