Doping Ban on Marathon Champ Underscores Need for Drug Testing
PRRO President Says Drug Testing Essential to Integrity of Sport
Spokane, WA – The Professional Road Running Organization (PRRO)
www.prro.org released the following statement today at news of Russian Athletics Federation’s ban for doping on Russian Marathoner and 2009, 2010 and 2011 Chicago Marathon champion Liliya Shobukhova.
“News of the Russian Athletics Federation’s two-year ban on Liliya Shobukhova’s for doping is very disappointing. Most world class competitive runners run clean and welcome drug testing knowing they’re competing on a level playing field. Testing is essential to the integrity of the sport because doping skews results and is unfair to all the runners who train so hard and count on honest results for their efforts. We owe it to the athletes to provide a clean environment where their training and personal effort will be the only measure of success. Cheating is not acceptable.”
Statement by Don Kardong, president of PRRO, race director for the May 4 Bloomsday Run in Spokane, WA and 1976 Olympic Marathoner
Shobukhova won the World Marathon Majors (WMM) titles in 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 as well as the 2009-2011 Chicago Marathon and the 2010 London Marathon. The WMM title is the largest single performance purse at $500,000 which Shobukhova won twice.
PRRO, a national alliance of race directors is uniquely committed to the development of elite runners and a drug-free sport and has partnered with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA)
www.usada.org to implement this program in each of the circuit’s five non-marathon road racing events. Each of the 5 world class races in the PRRO Circuit dedicates $8-10,000 per race to implement the drug testing program.
2014 PRRO Circuit Events:
February 23, World’s Best 10k, San Juan, Puerto Rico
April 6 – Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile, Washington, DC
May 4 – Lilac Bloomsday Run 12K, Spokane, WA
July 4 – The AJC Peachtree Road Race, Atlanta, GA
July 13, Boilermaker 15K, Utica, NY (2013-2014 PRRO Championship)
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