Camille Herron creates a scandal on Wikipedia

Camille Herron, running star, and her husband are accused of having discredited other cracks in the discipline by perfectly mastering technology.

The creators of the famous and widely used online encyclopedia Wikipedia probably did not imagine this. That the use of their tool, for educational purposes, can be similarly diverted. Because to do what running star Camille Herron (42) and her husband are accused of, you have to have a serious ego problem.

This is the magazine Canadian Running which revealed last week, after its investigations, the scandal surrounding the American runner, specialist in very long distances (on the road and in trail) and holder of several world records. With her husband and trainer, Conor Holt, Camille Herron, according to Canadian Runningbusy over the last seven years modifying the Wikipedia pages of its competitors (sometimes even indirect, because they are male) in removing positive sentences from their biography.

Camille Herron and Conor Holt now have a bad reputation. image: instagram

As a reminder, anyone can create a user account on Wikipedia and, thus, edit pages under certain conditions. The Herron/Holt couple – under pseudonym – for example, several times deleted statements such as “widely considered one of the best trail runners of all time” from the biographies of Kilian Jornet, Courtney Dauwalter, Desiree Linden or Yiannis Kouros. Who are all, like Camille Herron, marathon and ultramarathon stars.

But the American – who made more than 300 “contributions” to Wikipedia pages between 2017 and September 2024 – was not content to take away merits from others to try, by contrast, to shine.

Warning, repeat offense and consternation

This self-aggrandizement earned Camille Herron the deletion, last February, of her first account. A decision by Wikipedia administrators, who deemed this praise excessive. They had already warned Herron (or rather the pseudonym she used, “Temporun73”) in January, with the following message, cited by Canadian Running:

But the deletion of their account did not prevent Camille Herron and her husband from putting an end to their devious actions. Quite the contrary!

Camille Herron is the only athlete to have won at all three distances of the World Ultramarathon Championships.image: instagram

Just three days after their access was closed, they created a new account, “Rundbowie”. And they pushed the vice even further. This time, it is directly the general “Ultramarathon” page that they have mutilated. How? By erasing, last month, references to world records by Dane Stine Rexwho had just beaten… the marks established by Camille Herron, obviously!

This misdeed should, however, be the last of the couple on Wikipedia, unmasked because of their IP and email addresses. Even if the two Americans have not done anything illegal (ethically, however, that’s another story…), this scandal is likely to create big problems for them. Since it was revealed, Camille Herron has already been dropped by one of her sponsors.

Fraud isn’t just in running????

An ultramarathon leader expressed “his dismay” at “this unsporting, intimidating and mean-spirited behavior.”

This story also reminds us how important the image on the web or social networks has become for sports stars. But there are certainly better things to do to beautify it than the actions of Camille Herron and/or her husband.