'She’ll be right back to her level'- American 1500m record holder fires warning to Faith Kipyegon & Co after ending doping ban

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'She’ll be right back to her level'- American 1500m record holder fires warning to Faith Kipyegon & Co after ending doping ban

Abigael Wafula 14:17 - 15.01.2025

The American 1500m record holder has served her doping ban faithfully and hopes to challenge Faith Kipyegon and other 1500m runners this season.

Another formidable 1500m runner has entered the chat, firing warning shots at Faith Kipyegon, Diribe Welteji and Jessica Hull among other 1500m stars.

Four years ago, American 1500m record holder Shelby Houlihan was slapped with a doping ban after testing positive for the banned substance nandrolone and she has since served her term and is ready to make up for all the years she lost.

Houlihan denied consuming the banned substance knowingly and insisted that it entered her body via a contaminated pork burrito. The Court of Arbitration of Sport did not agree with her argument and slapped her with a four-year ban and now she is back.

She has missed a series of competitions including the 2022 and 2023 World Championships in Eugene, Oregon and Budapest, Hungary. She also missed two Olympic Games, the delayed Games in 2020 and the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.

Upon her return, the 5000m American record holder told her agent Paul Doyle that her main goal is to return to her top form and continue giving her competitors sleepless nights.

The American has been training and she even competed in three events. As per Letsrun.com, she competed in two road races in Iowa in 2022 and 2023 and also the 2023 Beer Mile World Classic.

"She said, probably 3:57. Which is mind-blowing. I fully expect her to be getting right back to where she was very quickly. Of course, there are four years of cobwebs you’ve gotta dust off. But everything in her training indicates that she’ll be right back to the level she was at," Doyle said in an interview with Letsrun.com.

Upon her comeback, Houlihan shared a lengthy post on her Instagram handle, still maintaining her innocence and insisted that during her time off, she went through a lot of thinking.

She added that four years seemed like forever and was unsure about making a comeback in the sport. She found identity in running and now having to live without competing seemed impossible.

“Everything about who I was and what I had spent my life working for was stripped away and discredited in an instant. I had to serve consequences for actions that I never chose to make,” she said.

“It’s been 4 years. I made it. I feel relief, happiness, and pride for getting through it, but I also still feel incredibly angry and sad that I had to. I still have no real answers for what happened 4 years ago.

“I don’t know with any certainty what happened, but some things that I have seen are inconsistencies in standards and protocols, a lack of transparency, and a lack of accountability within the anti-doping governing bodies. Unfortunately, the athletes and the sport seem to be the ones to suffer.”

She admitted to having grown beyond measure, revealing that she rediscovered herself during that time and knew that life would continue even after her career seemed over.

Now, focus shifts to the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, Japan where she hopes to make the cut at the US trials and then go battle it out with Kipyegon and other fierce rivals.

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