American ultra runner Camille Herron has been dropped by her sponsors after becoming embroiled in a scandal involving edits made to her Wikipedia page, as well as to pages of other runners.
According to reporting by Canadian Running magazine, the apparel brand Lululemon announced it had ended its partnership with Herron on Thursday, citing a difference in values.
The decision came after a September 23 article by the magazine which details edits made to the Wikipedia pages of Kilian Jornet and Courtney Dauwaulter that appear to downplay those runners' achievements, in addition to edits made to Herron's own page which seem to inflate her accomplishments.
According to that article, the edits were made by the username “Rundbowie”, which was created in February 2024 after the account with the username "Temporun73" was blocked from editing Herron's page by Wikipedia for one week for violating the site's conflict of interest policies. Between the two accounts, hundreds of contributions have been made to Wikipedia pages since 2017.
Canadian Runner reports that the accounts removed the phrase “widely regarded as one of the best trail runners ever” from both Jornet and Dauwalter’s pages, using the justification of “removing puffery”, while adding the statement “widely regarded as one of the greatest ultramarathon runners of all time" to Herron's biography. The magazine claims these edits have been traced to Herron’s email address and her husband's IP address.
In March of this year, an update to Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard reported the following:
"Rundbowie has several times removed well sourced content at Courtney Dauwalter and Kílian Jornet Burgada--content in question isn't puffery if it's been well established. There's also an interest in adding to Camille Herron, which corresponds with the edit warring by Temporun73.
"Additionally, the newer account was created on February 8, hours after the first account was blocked. Altogether, this looks like one or several related users with an agenda re: ultramarathon competitors."
The blog LetsRun.com has published an email reportedly from Herron's husband Conor Holt taking responsibility for editing his wife's Wikipedia page. The email states that Holt created and manages Temporun73 on Wikipedia and the edits to his wife's page were in response to "cyberbullying" Herron has allegedly received where users edited out "significant" parts of Herron's biography, something he claims has affected his wife's mental health.
"I kept adding back in the details, and then they blocked my account in early February of this year. Nothing was out of line with what other athletes have on their pages. Wikipedia allows the creation of another account, so I created a new account Rundbowie," writes Holt.
"Camille had nothing to do with this. I am 100% responsible and apologize for any athletes affected by this and the wrong I did."
His email did not appear to address the edits made by the same account to Jornet and Dauwalter's Wikipedia pages.
Advnture has reached out to Holt and Lululemon for comment.
In response to an inquiry Advnture sent to the Global Organization of Multi-day Marathoners, Vice President Viktoria Brown told us:
"I believe there is still a way back into the ultrarunning community for Camille, but there would first need to be a public acknowledgment of wrongdoing, ideally a sincere apology and most importantly a promise to stop the harmful behaviour going forward."
Brown, a Canadian-Hungarian ultra runner, directed us to her Facebook page, where she has been vocal about Herron's alleged actions, including a screenshot she shared on Friday of a Facebook post from Herron, which you can view below, which appears to acknowledge the situation. Herron's Facebook page and website have since been taken down, while her Instagram page continues with commenting and messaging disabled.
Who is Camille Herron?
Camille Herron is an American runner from Oklahoma. She holds 12 world records in ultramarathon distances and is currently the only athlete to win all of the IAU Ultra Road World Championships (50 km, 100 km, and 24 hours).
In 2023, Herron became the first woman to break 24 hours at the 153-mile Spartathlon, a historic race that takes place every September in Greece. She is currently competing in the 2024 race.
Earlier this year, Herron participated in a 6-day, 10-woman ultra marathon with Lululemon in California, where she ran ran 560.33 miles over the course of six days.
