Kenya’s 10 kilometres road race record holder Rhonex Kipruto has been banned for six years for doping and his world mark cancelled, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced on Wednesday.
Kipruto was banned until May 10, 2029 after the AIU’s disciplinary tribunal ruled “irregularities in his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) resulted from doping”.
Rejecting Kipruto’s defence, the tribunal concluded the “cause for the abnormalities in the ABP is more likely to be due to blood manipulation” and there was “no other plausible explanation”.
The 24-year-old had been provisionally suspended on May 11 last year after irregularities in his biological passport going back to July 2018 were detected.
ABP monitoring selects biological variables in athletes over time and allows sanctioning without a positive doping test in the event of unanimity of a panel of experts.
Kipruto took the 10,000 metres bronze medal at the 2019 world championships in Doha.
He set the 10km record of 26 minutes 24 seconds in Valencia in 2020 but finished a disappointing ninth in the 10,000m at the Olympics in 2021.
The AIU has cancelled all the athlete’s results between September 2, 2018 and May 11, 2023.
As a result, Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi will become the new world record holder over 10km after his 26min 33sec clocked last year.
Kenya’s endurance athletes have been the source of numerous cases of doping in recent years.
The AIU, an independent body responsible in particular for tests and investigations since 2017, last year denounced large-scale doping in the country.