While road racing and track and field have been embroiled in waves of doping scandals recently, ultra and trail running have remained mostly removed from the fray. But some athletes at The North Face Endurance Challenge 50 Mile are miffed that organizers are allowing a runner who served a two-year drug suspension to compete for its $10,000 first-place prize this weekend.
Elisa Desco, an Italian who won the 2009 world mountain championship before failing a drug test conducted that day, appeared as a late entrant to the TNF 50 start list earlier this week. The drug wasn’t revealed at the time of her conviction, but was later reported to be EPO. Desco served a two-year ban from 2010-2012 and has resumed competition since then.
Since returning to the sport, Desco was third at the 2013 world mountain running championships and 11th at that same event in 2014. She was third in the 2014 and 2015 Skyrunning “Sky” world series. This year she won races in Hong Kong and in Switzerland.
American runners have competed against her in these events previously, but it’s her entrance into a race in the U.S., coupled with the recent worldwide doping news, that has prompted a stronger reaction from the athletes.
Defending TNF 50 women’s champion Magdalena Boulet called for action from the race. "I guess the kind way to say it is that I’m disappointed that the race organization allowed her into the elite field," Boulet said, in an interview with Runner’s World.
Boulet added that she would like the sport to ban all cheaters from being eligible to win prize money.
"I don’t care if a doper served their ban and are technically eligible to race. If they still want to run for the love of the sport, they are welcome to, but I guarantee that they would slowly go away," she said. "Now that’s not to say that this strategy will solve doping in our sport, but it is a good start."
Related: Should races welcome runners who've served drug bans?
Eric Schranz, of UltrarunnerPodcast, shared similar sentiments, but also sees Desco’s presence at TNF 50 as a chance to open the dialogue about performance-enhancing drugs in trail and ultrarunning.
"For a sport that values camaraderie and inclusiveness, Desco will be on the outside of that group due to her past, and that's a place she's earned," Schranz said. "But then again, maybe we need her to podium this weekend to really force an honest conversation about how we want to grow as a sport and how we'll handle the PED problem."
TNF 50 does not currently have drug testing or a policy regarding convicted dopers. In a written statement, Katie Ramage, The North Face sports marketing director, said the organization is dedicated to clean sport and called the issue "incredibly complex."
"…and while we’d like to have a solution readily available, we believe it’s more important that lasting change is created by doing it right, which takes time," according to Ramage’s statement. "Rest assured that as soon as we have something to share, we will."
Ian Sharman, race director for the U.S. Skyrunner Series, is pushing for life bans for convicted dopers for all Skyrunning events globally.
"This isn’t a reaction to an individual, but a response to the widespread doping uncovered recently in athletics in general. We can’t change our rules at this point without the rules being changed for the entire International Skyrunning Federation, so that’s where we’re aiming to make the change so we can send a clear signal that cheating isn’t acceptable," he said.
Sharman explained his reasoning further, "people caught cheating in other ways usually get lifetime bans from a race, even just switching race bibs can lead to that. So doping should definitely lead to more serious consequences than short-term bans, especially in light of evidence that doping can cause long-term physical benefits even after it’s stopped."
Runner’s World Major Changes Hit Northern Arizona Elite.
