Rhonex Kipruto: World 10km Record Holder Banned For 6 Years

Kenyan Rhonex Kipruto, the 10 km road race world record holder, has been banned for six years.

This is because of irregularities found in his Athlete Biological Passport.

This means 24-year-old Kipruto will be stripped of his record.

He set the record in Valencia, Spain in 2020, and the 10,000m bronze medal he won at the 2019 World Championships.

Kipruto will be banned until May 2029.

According to the BBC, ABP is an electronic record which tracks an athlete’s biomarkers over their career.

If these markers change dramatically it warns administrators that the athlete might be doping.

“The Tribunal rejected Kipruto’s defence, 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),”

“There was ‘no other plausible explanation’ for the abnormal values.” Athletics Integrity Unit said.

Kipruto can appeal against the ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Nandrolone tops the list of the most prevalent performance-enhancing substances detected in Kenyan athletes standing at 35 per cent (49 of 138) of all (Adverse Analytical Findings (AAFs).

Others are corticosteroids, prednisone, prednisolone and methylprednisolone followed by 13 per cent (18 out of 138) of all Kenyan AAFs. They are administered orally or via injection.

The third most prevalent prohibited substance accounting for 12 per cent is Erythropoietin (EPO).

According to a report, doping is being facilitated by coaches, agents, managers and rogue officials keen on the dollar at the expense of the athletes.

Some of these athletes are at times not even aware of the nefarious designs of their handlers.

They have been made to imbibe liquids, tablets or injected with performance substances.

Other ways athletes use to dope is through massaging of the muscles and “a highly specialised scientific process that entails transfusing of oxygen-laden blood, known as blood doping”.