Marathon world champion Jepchirchir suspended for doping

Kenya’s decorated marathon runner Peres Jepchirchir has been suspended after failing a drug test.

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) on Saturday provisionally suspended the 33-year-old reigning world marathon champion, who won the Sydney Marathon nine weeks ago, for testing positive for the banned Erythropoietin (EPO).

AIU disclosed on its X handle that they have suspended Jepchirchir, the winner of four World Marathon Major (WMM) races after an out-of-competition sample, collected in Kenya prior to her recent Sydney Marathon victory on August 20 in Australia.

Jepchirchir, the three-time World Half Marathon champion, is also a winner of the London Marathon (2024), the Boston Marathon (2022) and the New York Marathon (2021).

She won the 2020 Olympic Games women's marathon gold.

“The AIU has provisionally suspended reigning World and former Olympic champion, Peres Jepchirchir, after an out-of-competition sample, collected in Kenya prior to her recent Sydney Marathon victory, returned an adverse analytical finding for EPO,” said AIU.

Jepchirchir is the first major Kenyan athlete to be suspended for a doping offence in four months after a former world half marathon record holder, Kibiwott Kandie, was banned for eight years in June this year.

It also came on the same day the 2019 Tokyo Marathon champion, Ethiopia's Ruti Aga was handed a six-year ban for the presence and use of the prohibited Substance Methylprednisolone. She was also found guilty of tampering or attempted tampering with Wada procedures. 

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