Distance running great Peres Jepchirchir has been provisionally suspended over a positive test for the banned blood booster EPO that was taken before her victory in the recent Sydney Marathon.
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Friday the 33-year-old Olympic and world marathon champ gave an out-of-competition sample back in Kenya that returned an adverse analytical finding for the banned substance which enhances the production of red blood cells.
“I can only say that I feel terrible about what happened,” Jepchirchir’s agent Gianni Demadonna said in a statement.
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Adding: “And I think it’s only right that an athlete who uses the performance-enhancing drugs should be disqualified.”
Jepchirchir is considered an all-time road racing great, a six-time global champion on the roads who’s been a holder of the women’s-only world marathon record as well as having broken the world half-marathon record four times.
Twice, she’s been world half-marathon champion and back in Tokyo, scene of her Olympic victory in 2021, she took the world marathon title last year with a sensational lung-busting final 100m sprint that edged Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa in an epic finale.
Her dominant triumph in Sydney at the end of August only added to her remarkable record in major big city marathons, having also triumphed in New York (2021), Boston (2022) and London (2024).
Sydney Marathon organisers said in a statement on Friday that they were “extremely disappointed” to hear of the suspension.
“Jepchirchir is entitled to due process, and we will make no further comment on the case until that process has concluded,” the statement said.
“Our commitment to clean sport is unwavering. Every athlete who lines up in Sydney deserves to race on a level playing field, and every participant and spectator deserves to trust the result they see at the finish line.”
Jepchirchir destroyed the field there, clocking two hours 18 miniutes and 31 seconds as finished well over three minutes ahead of the second-placed fellow Kenyan Irine Cheptai.
After her runaway triumph in front of the Sydney Opera House, Jepchirchir told reporters: “I was prepared, but I was not sure when I came here if I would win, so I’m so glad and I’m so happy … it was not easy.”
It’s the latest doping scandal involving distance runners from Kenya. More than 140 of their athletes have been sanctioned since the AIU was established in 2017.
Last year, the women’s marathon world record holder Ruth Chepngetich was banned for three years after admitting anti-doping rule violations involving hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ), a prohibited diuretic.
Her world record of 2:09:56, though, stayed on the books because it was set before her positive test.
Former New York Marathon winner Albert Korir was given a five-year ban in March.
“So much of that I see when I’m on a broadcast call I do not believe. I’m not surprised by this,” said former world 10,000 metres silver medallist and broadcaster Kara Goucher, a whistleblower in the Nike Oregon Project case.
“I am, however, sad for all the athletes who finished behind her and were screwed out of a podium.”
– With Agencies
