As a board member at New York Road Runners, Nnenna Lynch serves on the committee responsible for the organization’s tough stance barring from races any runner who had served a doping suspension.
Lynch, who served a doping suspension 26 years ago, ran anyway.
A former professional runner who has been tapped to become the next chair of N.Y.R.R. in June, Lynch served a three-month suspension after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 1996. She never disclosed that information to colleagues as she rose to prominence within N.Y.R.R., which stages the New York City Marathon and has staked out a near-zero-tolerance policy toward performance-enhancing drug offenders.
That policy, which people who worked with Lynch said she reviewed during lengthy discussions, prohibits anyone who has been suspended for doping for at least three months from participating in the organization’s races.
N.Y.R.R. displays the policy on its website in a box explaining eligibility. It applies to all participants, not just elite runners, since many former top runners continue to compete in masters division races, for competitors over 40, as they age.
“Athletes who have been suspended for doping by a governing body are not eligible to participate in, and should not apply for entry in, N.Y.R.R. races,” the policy states. “Extenuating circumstances may be reviewed by the N.Y.R.R. Race Director.”
Lynch joined the board in 2014 and in 2016 the policy gained prominence as the organization began to promote its Run Clean initiative and expand testing to selected runners at weekly races that do not include professional fields.
Despite that policy being in place, Lynch began competing again in 2019, when she was 47, after a six-year hiatus from running in the organization’s races, according to its database.
A former star in high school and college and a member of the U.S. national cross-country team in the 1990s, Lynch excelled in N.Y.R.R.’s races.
She won the 45-to-49 age group at the New York City Half Marathon in March 2019, completing the 13.1-mile course in 1 hour 26 minutes 56 seconds, good for 90th place among more than 12,300 women. Lynch ran as part of the AdiRun N.Y.C. running club team.
Nearly two months later, she won her age group in the Newport Fiesta 5K race, and in 2021 she finished third in her age group in the New York Mini 10K. This year, she has run three N.Y.R.R. races, including two half-marathons. She has placed in the top three in her age group in each race.
In a statement issued through New York Road Runners on Friday, Lynch said she would no longer run in N.Y.R.R. races as long as doing so violated the organization’s policies. She described herself as both a lifelong participant in N.Y.R.R. races and a strong supporter of the clean-sports movement whose violation of the policy was “entirely unintentional.”
She did not respond to messages requesting she explain whether she did not believe the policy applied to her or if there was another dynamic that made the violation unintentional.
Lynch tested positive for having a prohibited amount of pseudoephedrine in her system 26 years ago. Pseudoephedrine is a nasal decongestant that can also be used as a stimulant.
She told associates that she sought care in the mid-1990s for breathing difficulties that were later diagnosed as exercise-induced asthma and took Claritin-D to treat it. Claritin-D contains pseudoephedrine. She told the associates that she had neglected to check its ingredients and whether anything in the medication was on the banned substances list, and the amount she took exceeded the allowable level for the substance. Her suspension caused her to miss the 1996 World Cross Country Championships in South Africa.
At the time of Lynch’s violation, athletes could not have more than 25 micrograms per milliliter of pseudoephedrine in their urine. Officials removed pseudoephedrine from the list of banned substances from 2004 to 2009, then put it back on in 2010 but raised the level required for a violation to 150 micrograms per milliliter.
Officials with U.S.A. Track & Field were not able to locate any records of Lynch’s case that might confirm how much pseudoephedrine was in her system. The United States Anti-Doping Agency does not have jurisdiction or records on positive cases that were resolved before it was established in October 2000.
After Lynch retired in 2000, the suspension became a largely forgotten detail on an otherwise stellar résumé that includes a career in real estate and development and a job serving as a senior adviser to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York for six years. In the years since she joined the Road Runners’ board in 2014 she has become a leading member. Earlier this year, the longtime chairman of the organization, George Hirsch, announced that Lynch would succeed him when he becomes chairman emeritus next June.
Other board members and executives at the organization said they did not know about Lynch’s doping suspension until The Times alerted them to it last month.
On Friday, N.Y.R.R. said it was reviewing its antidoping policies and guidelines “to ensure they continue to reflect the highest standards.”
The organization also said it had developed its Run Clean program and rules to focus on the invited professional athlete fields and top finishers. However, Peter Ciaccia, a former top executive at N.Y.R.R. who championed the organization’s antidoping policies, stressed testing and education for runners at every level during his tenure — even at weekend races without a professional field. Ciaccia’s push came as high-profile doping violations were becoming rampant in endurance sports and, in his view, threatening the future of distance running and the New York City Marathon.
The board is expected to discuss the matter in the coming weeks.
Some of the world’s leading antidoping officials have said that the N.Y.R.R. policy violates international antidoping rules, which state that once athletes have served a suspension that antidoping authorities have deemed appropriate, other sports organizations are not allowed to layer on additional penalties for the same offense.
The highest court in sports, the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sports, affirmed that rule in a 2010 case involving an Olympic champion who took a supplement that claimed to boost sexual performance. He faced an Olympic ban that stretched beyond the one doping authorities gave him, but the court ruled that the International Olympic Committee did not have the standing to mete out its own penalty.
No athlete has ever challenged the N.Y.R.R. policy, which the organization that oversees the world’s six most prestigious marathons also applies to the professional fields in those races. Antidoping officials say any athlete who decides to challenge it, Lynch included, would have a very strong case, but without a legal challenge, the policy can remain on the books.
Lynch may yet chair the organization, but unless the board changes its policy, she will not be able to run in its races.
The post Incoming New York Road Runners Chair Says Breaking Doping Rule Was Unintentional appeared first on New York Times.
