Addey Wiley clocks a 1:58.67 800-metre time at the Ed Murphey Classic

Addy Wiley from Huntington, Indiana won the Ed Murphey Classic 800-metre event in the time of 1:58.67. The 20-year-old’s personal best set last September in Switzerland is 1:57.64.

Taking second place was Olivia Baker in 1:59.51 and in third was Sammy Watson narrowly getting under the two-minute benchmark with her 1:59.98. It was a new personal best for the 24-year-old Watson.

Addy Wiley 🇺🇸 won the women's 800m at the Ed Murphey Classic, running a Season's Best (SB) of 1:58.67.

She was almost a second clear of Olivia Baker 🇺🇸 in 2nd with 1:59.51, while 3rd place went to Sammy Watson in a new Personal Best (PB) of 1:59.98. pic.twitter.com/ASnvvpcab7

— Track & Field Gazette (@TrackGazette) July 12, 2024

For Watson, the sub-2:00 was a long time coming. The Temple University grad has race just over two-minute for six years. The Ed Murphey Classic performance was a breakthrough.

During the US Olympic Trials meet, Wiley was dealing with a minor hamstring issue, but it was enough to hamper her qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The qualification standard is 1:59.30 and the International Olympic Committee is accepting a maximum of 48 women and 48 men in the event.

Ajee Wilson is attempting to come back to form in the 800m. The 30-year-old has a world-class personal best of 1:55.61 from the 2017 Monaco Diamond League. Wilson is a two-time World Athletics Championships bronze medallist.

Results

Wilson’s career has been up and down since she tested positive for a banned substance in 2017. The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) cleared her. Wilson’s defence pointed to a hamburger that she ingested that was likely to be tainted.

USADA Media Release — Wilson, 23, provided a urine sample on February 11, 2017, at the NYRR Millrose Games in New York, NY. Her sample tested positive for zeranol. Zeranol is an Anabolic Agent prohibited at all times under the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing, the United States Olympic Committee National Anti-Doping Policies, and the International Association of Athletics Federations, all of which have adopted the World Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List.

During its investigation into the circumstances that led to the positive test, USADA gathered evidence from Wilson, which included reviewing her dietary habits and food purchase receipts. USADA also took into consideration laboratory reports demonstrating low parts per billion (ppb) concentrations of the prohibited substance in her urine, as well as the fact that she tested negative one week prior.

USADA further relied on reports from multiple independent experts on zeranol in the food supply and environment, including the use of zeranol as a legal growth promotant in beef cattle in the U.S. Based on the totality of the evidence, USADA concluded it was highly unlikely that the presence of zeranol in Wilson’s sample resulted from a source other than zeranol contaminated meat.

Zeranol (INN, USAN, BAN) (brand names Frideron, Ralabol, Ralgro, Ralone, Zerano; developmental code names MK-188, P-1496), or zearanol, also known as α-zearalanol or simply zearalanol, is a synthetic nonsteroidal estrogen of the resorcylic acid lactone group related to mycoestrogens found in fungi in the Fusarium genus.

Zeranol is approved for use as a growth promoter in livestock, including beef cattle, under the brand name Ralgro (by Merck Animal Health) in the United States. In Canada, it is approved for use in beef cattle only.[5] Its application is not approved for use in the European Union. However, it is marketed under the brand name Ralone in Spain.[2]