Alysia Montaño Calls Out An “Unforgivable” Trend In Professional Running

Earlier this year, Alysia Montaño was in a Cleveland, Ohio, hotel room, packing for a 6 a.m. flight home to Berkeley, California, when she got the call — well, technically, the text. Her friend and fellow Olympian Kara Goucher congratulated her on the news. What news? Montaño’s fifth-place finish at the 2012 Olympics, in which she ran the 800-meter in 1:57:93, would now be upgraded to a bronze medal after Russian athlete Ekaterina Guliyev was stripped of her medal due to doping allegations.

Montaño, who’s 38, had a Groundhog Day sensation; the retired runner had received this type of news twice already. Seven years ago, the runner who won the gold medal in the 2012 race, Mariya Savinova, had been identified as part of Russia’s state-sponsored doping program, bumping Montaño from fifth to fourth. Savinova was also disqualified from the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships and the 2011 and 2013 World Championships, belatedly promoting Montaño to podium finishes there as well.

“I knew I had medaled,” Montaño said in May on a panel at Camp Strava 2024, an annual Los Angeles event for outdoor industry professionals, influencers, and professional athletes. “It wasn’t this sour grapes situation of like, ugh, these women beat me,” added Montaño, a seven-time USA champion. “People who have never been on this world stage are all of a sudden there, and you’re like how did this happen?”

Doping has become an epidemic in professional running. At the 2011 World Championships, at least 30% of the athletes had been doping over the past 12 months, researchers revealed in a 2023 analysis published in the journal Sports Medicine - Open. In 2019, Russia was banned from the Olympics and global sports for four years due to widespread doping violations; this year, the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya suspended 26 track and field athletes for doping.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games will mark the International Olympic Committee’s first medal “reallocation” ceremony, recognizing 10 athletes who should have been on the podium from 2000 to 2012. Montaño, who only recently found out about her medal upgrade, will not be one of them — not yet, at least.

Losing out on the real-time accolades can have huge financial implications. Sponsor contracts regularly award athletes bonuses for good performances, and an Olympic medal can open the door to lucrative commercial deals. Montaño — who started the nonprofit &Mother, an organization that aims to support female athletes and shift the narrative around motherhood and sports — estimates she lost out on well over seven figures. (This summer, track and field will be the first Olympic sport to award gold medalists prize money — an extra $50,000; payments for silver and bronze medalists will start at the 2028 Olympics.)

Below, Montaño talks about being denied a podium moment, gender inequality in sponsorship deals, and what needs to change.

“I want the people in charge to step forward and show how important it is to support clean sport, integrity and honor, and that’s it’s not about winning at all costs.”

It must have been both vindicating and heartbreaking to get this news. How does it feel to know that you are an Olympic medalist?

Well, gosh, it’s zero podium moments and the third time that I’ve been upgraded to a podium spot. That moment’s lost. I’ve had to do so much mental gymnastics over the past 12 years to be OK-ish, to try and put myself in a position of health and happiness mentally. But the unseen work to do that and to walk into this story cycle over and over feels wildly abusive, and having the moments I’ve progressed to still be shadowed by this craziness is unfair and undeserved.

You’ve been outspoken about losing those medal moments, and the potential financial opportunities that come with them. How do we rectify this?

Being cheated out of those opportunities is unforgivable. We [should be] talking [about] lifetime bans. I can’t believe that the bronze medalist in 2012 was able to compete again after being found guilty for doping. [Ed note: Guliyev received a two-year ban in 2017; in 2022, she began competing for Turkey under her husband’s last name.] And folks who are caught doping should be fined. There needs to be sport reform where athletes have to pay damages.

What I need is next steps. I need the governing bodies of the sport to figure out who’s at fault and a framework to pay athletes for their losses.

I’ve been lucky that my [sponsors] now, like Clif and Altra, see my value and have taken big steps to make sure that they give me what they would’ve paid their athletes at the time for winning a bronze medal. That’s the right thing for sponsors to do. [Ed. note: Clif was the first to pay Montaño her podium bonus for the 2012 Olympics although they were not a sponsor at the time, and Altra also awarded her win with the same bonus she would have received if she were to win under contract, even though she was a Nike-sponsored athlete at the time.]

It’s not just about the money, though. The mental health implications are also significant, and it can’t be easy to keep reliving this over and over again. What can be done to better support athletes in your situation?

It’s important to institute an athlete mental health protection plan, because that part is completely uncared for and wide open. All three times, I found out the news from an article. As soon as [the governing bodies in running] knew, I should have gotten an immediate message from my national governing body, from all the committees involved. There has been no recourse for me to be protected and cared for within the system, I just have to deal with it. I’m proud of who I am in the sport and how I continue to do the work to help leave it better than I found it, but I want the people in charge to step forward and show how important it is to support clean sport, integrity and honor, and that’s it’s not about winning at all costs.

Now that you’ve been upgraded to the bronze, have you pictured what receiving that medal might look like?

When I found out about the World Championships in 2015, I didn’t get my medal until 2019, four years later. It takes time, and I want it to be done right. I want a very real moment in Los Angeles 2028. And I want to be supported over the next four years to continue the fight for change. I don’t want to be banging down doors, siloed as I’ve been for the last 12 years. I want the governing bodies to get up on their feet and champion this change.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.