June 05, (THEWILL) – Kenyan runner, Rhonex Kipruto, has been handed a six-year ban for doping violations, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced on Wednesday. The 24-year-old will lose his 10-kilometre road race world record and a world championship bronze medal due to the suspension.
Kipruto, who won the 10,000-metre bronze at the 2019 World Championships, had been provisionally suspended for an anti-doping violation in May 2023. His ban will run until May 2029, effectively ruling him out of the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics and the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
The Disciplinary Tribunal found irregularities in Kipruto’s Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), which can reveal the effects of doping. The AIU stated that the panel rejected Kipruto’s defence, concluding that the abnormalities were more likely due to blood manipulation, such as through the use of recombinant human erythropoietin (rEPO).
Kipruto had set the 10km road race world record in 2020 in Valencia and won the 10,000 metres event at the 2019 Stockholm Diamond League. However, these results will now be annulled due to the doping violation. The panel was “comfortably satisfied” that Kipruto was involved in a “deliberate and sophisticated doping regime over a long period of time”.
While Kipruto can still appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the six-year ban marks a significant blow to his career and further tarnishes Kenya’s reputation in the fight against doping.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
