Camille Herron, an accomplished American ultrarunner with over a dozen world records, and her husband and coach, Conor Holt, are facing allegations of manipulating Wikipedia entries. The controversy centers around edits to the Wikipedia pages of prominent ultrarunners Kilian Jornet and Courtney Dauwalter, which downplayed their achievements while boosting Herron’s own profile. The edits have been traced back to Herron’s email address and Holt’s IP address.
The couple has been using the Wikipedia account “Rundbowie” since February 2024, after their previous account, “Temporun73,” was temporarily banned for violating Wikipedia’s conflict-of-interest policies. After that ban, the “Rundbowie” account was created and resumed activity, continuing the pattern of edits—promoting Herron and altering the pages of other athletes.
One of the more controversial actions involved removing the phrase “widely regarded as one of the best trail runners ever” from Jornet’s and Dauwalter’s pages, with the explanation of “removing puffery.” Meanwhile, Herron’s own page was edited to include a similar phrase, describing her as “widely regarded as one of the greatest ultramarathon runners of all time.”
Since 2017, the two accounts linked to Herron have made over 300 edits, with more than half focused on her own page. These edits often involved embellishing her achievements while deleting positive content from the profiles of other athletes, including 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden and ultrarunning legend Yiannis Kouros.
In addition to these changes, Herron edited the Wikipedia page for “Ultramarathon” in both June and September 2024 to remove references to Danish ultrarunner Stine Rex’s 48-hour and six-day world records. Although Rex’s performances surpassed Herron’s, they are still awaiting ratification by the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU), meaning Herron’s records remain officially recognized for now.
Warnings and Previous Bans
This controversy didn’t appear out of the blue. Herron’s earlier account, “Temporun73,” had been flagged repeatedly for making self-promotional edits to her Wikipedia page. Wikipedia administrators sent warnings instructing the account to comply with policies requiring a neutral tone and disclosure of conflicts of interest. Herron’s account deleted these warnings, calling them “abusive talk.”
One specific warning, issued in January 2024, stated: “Using language like ‘legendary,’ ‘prestigious,’ and ‘steely toughness’ is not the kind of neutral tone that is allowed in writing here. Wikipedia is a factual source of content, not a promotional platform for athletes.”
The “Rundbowie” account was highly active from February through April 2024 but went quiet during Herron’s six-day world record attempt with Lululemon in early March. Edits resumed on March 19, with the removal of the phrase “widely regarded as one of the world’s best trail runners” from both Jornet’s and Dauwalter’s pages.
On March 22, Wikipedia administrators confirmed that “Rundbowie” was linked to the previously banned “Temporun73” account. Investigators matched the email used for “Temporun73” to an old address of Herron’s, which she had used since 2007 while at Oregon State University. The IP address linked to both accounts was also traced to Holt and a phone number from the Oklahoma City area.
The situation has prompted discussions in the ultrarunning and Wikipedia communities about the ethics of self-promotion on public platforms. So far, neither Herron nor Holt has publicly commented on the allegations.
Source: Canadian Running Magazine
