Back on track after her four-year 'Burrito Ban,' Shelby Houlihan looks to make up for lost time

TOKYO (AP) — For stretches of her four long years in running purgatory, the poster child for a drug-fighting system in sports that nobody truly understands was as likely to be seen driving her ’71 VW minibus across the United States as working out on the track.

America’s reigning 5,000-meter champion, Shelby Houlihan, used what is now known, infamously, as her “Burrito Ban” to scratch some things off her bucket list. She bought the burgundy bus — sight unseen — and logged an estimated 6,000 miles on a tour of America that wasn’t possible when she was training.

“I thought, I didn’t have running to hold me back,” Houlihan said. “I’ve got to go do some fun things.”

Now that her ban is expired, “fun” means rediscovering the purpose for all those miles she’s piled up – not in the minibus, but over four years of running just to run.

Houlihan advanced through the first round of the 5,000 meters Thursday night at the world championships in Japan's National Stadium, the place she was denied a chance to compete four years ago in the wake of a polarizing doping ban that took away not one, but two Olympics.

This is her first major outdoor track meet since the 2019 worlds where she finished fourth in the 1,500 in Doha.

“Most people believe your prime is like 27 to 30 or 31, and those are the years that I missed,” said the 32-year-old Iowa native who lives out of a camper with her boyfriend, two dogs and a cat in Flagstaff, Arizona.

“I can’t do anything to get those back. Part of me wonders what I could’ve done. But that’s a rabbit hole I don’t need to go down.”

Houlihan says she shifts between trying to shine a light on a system she says ultimately betrayed her and going about the business of making up for lost time.

She said she “blindly believed” in the global anti-doping system because, as she put it, “I knew I didn’t cheat.” Then, it turned drastically and dramatically against her.

Four years after she made news of the ban public on the eve of the 2021 Olympic trials, there remain some who saw Houlihan improve drastically in the late 2010s and never believed her alibi for testing positive for a performance enhancer: that she ingested it by eating a drug-tainted pork burrito bought from a food truck.

Among those who did, however, were the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which tested her 53 times between 2017 and 2021 without turning up a positive.

USADA has passed on or not levied sanctions in a number of similar contamination cases over the years, and the subject has become even more fraught in the years since Houlihan’s case erupted.

The World Anti-Doping Agency’s handling of a case involving Chinese swimmers in the leadup to the Paris Olympics brought recriminations about the differing ways drug-fighting agencies choose to handle cases steeped in the complex science of contamination.

Houlihan’s case was taken up not by USADA but by the Athletics Integrity Unit – the agency formed to help World Athletics police doping – and it offered her no bailout. It also offered her no consideration for the fact that rules concerning contamination had been relaxed to account for recent improvements of lab equipment to detect the most scant traces of banned substances.

Houlihan's return to the big time comes less than a week after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a contamination ban levied against U.S. sprinter Erriyon Knighton — a case in which a USADA panel believed Knighton's excuse, but the AIU and World Anti-Doping Agency appealed and got a ban.

“If they follow up on something, there's probably a really good reason why they're doing it,” World Athletics President Seb Coe said when asked why AIU might handle contamination cases differently than other agencies. “They don't leave a lot to chance.”

Houlihan said it didn't take long to recognize the losing battle she was up against, even if she wasn't ready to accept it.

“When the ban first happened, there was this fire and stubbornness and a ‘Screw them, I’m going to break records anyway, I don’t care if they count,’” Houlihan said. “That ended up being so much harder than I anticipated. I’m not really fueled well by anger.”

Even so, Houlihan kept running, even when she wasn’t sure why.

Her training alongside her peers on the circuit was all but shut off because of the ban. So, Houlihan went to local running clubs, met new people, tried to make connections that had once been there because of her day job but had since vanished.

Her contract with Nike also vanished -- “There wasn’t any actual phone call. I just sort of stopped getting paid,” she said – and so, to make ends meet, Houlihan slept on couches, did some house-sitting and took care of cats.

Now that she’s back in the game, she finds herself thinking about performance enhancers in ways that hadn’t occurred to her before.

“I don’t take supplements anymore. I drink Pedialyte and that’s about it,” she said. “The meat I eat, I freeze it just in case I get tested. And if I do get tested, that meat will sit in the freezer until I hear it’s a clean test. It’s not the way I like to live, but it’s the way I have to at this point.”

It’s the price to pay to bring her race back onto tracks where the times really count and there are medals on the line. She won a silver in the 3,000 meters at the indoor worlds last March – a sign that the four years scratching items off her bucket list hadn’t robbed her of everything.

“I knew I didn’t want to walk away from this sport,” she said. “I contemplated it. But if I walked away, I was always going to wonder what I could’ve done if I’d stuck to it.”

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

United States' Shelby Houlihan competes in women's 5,000 meters heat at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

United States' Shelby Houlihan competes in women's 5,000 meters heat at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

United States' Shelby Houlihan competes in women's 5,000 meters heat at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

FILE - Shelby Houlihan, of the United States, poses on the podium after winning the silver medal in the women's 3000 meters at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China, Saturday, March 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)

FILE - Shelby Houlihan wins the women's 5,000-meter final at the U.S. Championships athletics meet in Eugene, Ore., Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Catchers were far more successful than batters through Major League Baseball's first full week of challenges to robot umpires, led by the Detroit Tigers and Dillon Dingler.

The overall success rate in the Automated Ball-Strike System was 55.2% (299 of 542), with fielding teams winning 59.7% of challenges (175 of 293), including 60.4% by catchers (169 of 280).

“I like it a little more. I was pretty staunch against it, which I still may be to some degree,” New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.

There were just 13 challenges by pitchers, who won six. Batters were successful on 49.8% (124 of 249).

“I think it’s fun. It’s its own game inside the game, almost," Tampa Bay catcher Hunter Feduccia said.

Success rate was up from 49.5% last year at Triple-A, where defense won 53.7% and batters 49.5%

Detroit won the highest percentage of calls at 75% (15 of 20) while Arizona was at 71%, and Baltimore and Cincinnati both 67%.

Minnesota called for the most challenges with 32, winning 20 for a 63% success rate. Texas had the fewest, winning 4 of 10.

Cleveland was the least successful at 32%, with Washington at 38% and St. Louis and Texas at 40%

Detroit catchers were 8-0, with seven wins by Dingler.

ABS' impact could be seen when Atlanta played at Arizona last Thursday. The Braves were ahead 2-1 when the Diamondbacks' Ryne Nelson threw a 3-2 curveball on the upper, outside corner to Ozzie Albies that was called a strike by Malachi Moore. Albies challenged and headed toward first even before ABS showed the pitch missed the strike zone by 1.1 inches. The walk started an eight-run rally in a 17-2 romp.

“In some of these games, it’s had a more of a swinging effect on outcomes of at-bats and how things change than maybe even you thought,” Miami manager Clayton McCullough said.

Logan O’Hoppe of the Los Angeles Angels had the most victories, successful on 10 of 12. The Marlins’ Agustín Ramírez won 7 of 9 and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Will Smith 8 of 11.

Seattle’s Cal Raleigh won 4 of 9 and the Athletics’ Shea Langeliers 3 of 9.

Among batters, Mark Vientos of the New York Mets and Iván Herrera both went 3-0. Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels was 3-1 along with Philadelphia's Kyle Schwarber and Tampa Bay's Jake Fraley.

Colorado's Hunter Goodman and Washington's Luis García Jr. were both 0 for 3.

Boone said Yankees staff and players daily review challenges made and opportunities missed.

Players still are getting used to ABS. Washington's Jorbit Vivas tapped his helmet signaling for an appeal on March 31 when the Nationals already had exhausted their two challenges.

Among umpires, Mike Estabrook had 11 of 12 calls overturned (91.7%), Andy Fletcher had 15 of 17 (88.2%), Ron Kulpa and Paul Clemons each 7 of 9 (77.8%) and Chris Segal 10 of 13 (76.9%), according to taptochallenge.com.

Will Little had just 1 of 10 calls reversed while Erich Bacchus was perfect with no overturned calls in five challenges. Others with low overturn rates with at least five challenges included Emil Jiménez (1 of 5), Jordan Baker (2 of 8), Ryan Additon and Nick Mahrley (both 2 of 7) and David Rackley (3 of 10).

Offense again lagged through the first 139 games of the 2,430-game season.

The .234 big league batting average is down from .239 through 12 days last year (including the two games in Japan), when it finished at .245. The average usually increases as the weather warms. The full-season low of .237 was set in 1968.

Runs per game averaged 8.8, up from 8.7, and stolen bases dropped to 1.4 per game from 1.6

Average fastball velocity is 94.6 mph, up from 94.1 mph through the first full week last year. The final figure increased in each of the last five seasons to a record 94.5 mph in 2025. It was 91.9 mph when MLB first started tracking in 2008.

“I wish I was facing the same pitching as I did my rookie year back when guys were throwing 88-mile-an-hour sinkers over the plate," said 33-year-old Cleveland catcher Austin Hedges. “That pitch doesn’t exist anymore.”

The average time of a nine-inning game is 2 hours, 43 minutes, up from 2:37 at this point last year, when it finished at 2:38.

Pitch clock violations averaged 0.17 per game, down from 0.22 through 139 games last year.

MLB's average crowd of 31,725 through 138 dates was up 1.5% over 31,255 for the same period last year.

AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston and Steve Megargee, and AP freelance writer Tom Withers contributed to this report.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

Houston Astros' Jose Altuve (27) watches a replay of the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System (ABS) during the first inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox in Houston, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Minnesota Twins' Josh Bell, right, signals for an ABS challenge on a called third strike, which was upheld, during the first inning of baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Saturday, April 4, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn)

Detroit Tigers catcher Dillon Dingler throws to first base for an out on a St. Louis Cardinals' Victor Scott II bunt in the first inning of a baseball game Saturday, April 4, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)