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Rhonex Kipruto, a prominent Kenyan athlete, was Wednesday handed a six-year ban for doping,the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced. This decision means Kipruto, 24, will be stripped of his 10-kilometer road race world record and a world championship bronze medal.
Kipruto, who earned a bronze medal in the 10,000 meters at the 2019 World Championships, was provisionally suspended in May last year following an anti-doping violation. His ban will extend until May 2029.
In 2020, Kipruto set the 10km road race world record in Valencia and won the 10,000 meters at the 2019 Stockholm Diamond League. Both of these achievements will now be annulled due to the doping violation.
A Disciplinary Tribunal found irregularities in Kipruto’s Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), which indicated potential doping activities. The AIU stated, “The Tribunal rejected Kipruto’s defense, concluding the ’cause for the abnormalities in the ABP is more likely to be due to blood manipulation’ such as through the use of recombinant human erythropoietin (rEPO).” They added that there was no other plausible explanation for the abnormal values observed.
Despite denying the Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) charge, the panel was “comfortably satisfied” that Kipruto had engaged in a “deliberate and sophisticated doping regime over a long period of time.”
Kipruto still has the option to appeal this decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
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