Camille Herron dropped by Lululemon following Wikipedia controversy
Camille Herron, a US long-distance runner with multiple ultrarunning world records, has been dropped by Lululemon, her primary sponsor. following reports that she has been editing Wikipedia entries to downgrade other athletes and magnify herself.
In a statement sent to Runner’s World, Lululemon wrote: “We are committed to upholding equitable competition in sport for all and intentionally partner with ambassadors who embody these same values. After careful consideration and conversation, we have decided to end our ambassador partnership with Camille. We want to acknowledge Camille’s achievements during our partnership and wish her well in her future endeavors.”
Herron, who did not respond to a text message from Runner’s World, initially denied the accusations on the social media platform X, before deleting her accounts on X and Instagram.
According to Canadian Running Magazine, 42-year-old Herron and Conor Holt, her coach and husband, have together been accused of making multiple amends to the Wikipedia pages of herself and other ultrarunners – including Courtney Dauwalter and Kilian Jornet – which contravene Wikipedia’s policies on tone neutrality and conflict of interest.
A seasoned and successful runner over extreme distances, Herron entered this year as the women’s 48-hour world record holder, and the first runner to have won all three road IAU World Championships for the 50K, 100K and 24-hour race. Then, in March 2024, Herron racked up an additional 11 world records at Further – Lululemon’s women’s-only, multi-day ultramarathon in the US state of California – where she ran 560.33 miles in six consecutive days.
The recent allegations claim that Herron and Holt, who have been operating on Wikipedia under the username ‘Rundbowie’ since February 2024, have been removing the titles and achievements of other high-achieving ultramarathoners on their Wikipedia pages. Examples include deleting ‘widely regarded as one of the best trail runners ever’ from Jornet and Dauwalter’s pages, along with descriptions of their race wins, while adding almost the exact same line to her own. In June and September 2024, the pair were also accused of altering the ‘Ultramarathon’ Wikipedia page to remove references to the 48-hour and six-day world records (although not officially recognised by the International Association of Ultrarunners) of Danish ultrarunner Stine Rex. These edits have all reportedly been traced back to Herron’s email address and Holt’s IP address.
In addition, Wikipedia notes that the Rundbowie account was quiet during Herron’s six-day Further campaign (6-12 March), but very active in the months surrounding it.
This is not the first time that Herron and Holt have been accused of poor behaviour on Wikipedia.
The pair had previously operated under a separate account, ‘Temporun73’, which – following a number of warnings from Wikipedia administrators – was eventually banned for violating the online encyclopaedia’s conflict of interest policies.
It has been reported that the new account, Rundbowie, was set up to resume Wikipedia editing activity just hours after Temporun73 was blocked. Since 2017, Herron and Holt have supposedly made more than 300 edits to Wikipedia pages from their two accounts, with more than half of these contributions being embellishments to Herron’s own page. Other pages that Herron and Holt have been found to have stripped of positive content include those of US marathoner Des Linden – the 2018 Boston Marathon champion – and Greek ultrarunner Yiannis Kouros.
The report also said Herron “altered the ultramarathon Wikipedia page to remove references to Danish ultrarunner Stine Rex’s 48-hour and six-day world records.” Rex ran the six-day record earlier this month, breaking Herron’s record from March.
Rex said in a September 23 Facebook post, translated from Danish, that Herron had accused her of cheating during her six-day record and “instead of talking about what achievement I had made, [I] had to defend myself to the Danish and foreign media about why the world’s best female ultrarunner accused me of cheating. She took my joy of victory and made me doubt if I did something wrong.”
In March 2024, Wikipedia administrators reasoned that the Rundbowie account was simply a continuation of the now-redundant Temporun73 account, having found links between the email address and IP address used for both. As such, the administrators filed another incident report.
‘In my 46 years of ultrarunning, I’ve never seen anyone as talented as Camille, who is so dedicated to creating division and animosity within the ultrarunning community,’ said Trishul Cherns, President of the Global Organization of Multi-Day Marathoners, in light of the accusations against Herron and Holt.
‘Unfortunately, the Wikipedia story is part of a pattern of interference,’ continued Cherns. ‘This couple has a history of trying to disrupt athletes, their reputations, races and performances by citing World Athletics rules that do not apply to ultrarunning and multi-day running. I was appalled by Camille’s criticism directed at athletes challenging ‘her’ records and her efforts to discredit them. This unsportsmanlike behaviour is bullying and mean-spirited and has no place in the larger ultrarunning community.’
Holt wrote in an email posted to LetsRun that he took full responsibility for the edits to Herron’s pages. The email did not explain why the pages of others were edited.
RW has reached out to Herron and Holt for comment, but is yet to receive a response.
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