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Cirque du Soliel is looking for its next skinny clown — now that Michael Saruni is banned, he should apply.

It seems that Kenyan athletes will do anything to make national teams and win prize money in the sport of athletics. There are stories of bribes, tampering, and running away from testers by climbing out of windows. The latest about Michael Saruni may be the most crafty and desperate.

Saruni recruited a doppelganger to hide in the washrooms of the stadium. After racing, Saruni began to cough very hard. In a ruse to take care of the cough, he ran to the washroom and swapped out his race bib number with a “clean athlete.” who looked similar — a doppelganger to be drug tested in place of Saruni.

Saruni, 28, has been banned for four years. The 800-metre runner pulled the exchange at the Kenyan trials for the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games in Nairobi in June 2022. According to the Kenyan Anti-Doping Agency (ADAK), he literally “escaped.”

Saruni owns a best of 1:43.25 and 1:43.98 indoors or “short track.”

He competed in the NCAA for the University of Texas El Paso and went on to set an NCAA record in the 800m clocking a 1:43.25 to better Donavan Brazier’s record of 1:43.55.