Kenya’s Sarah Chepchirchir has been provisionally suspended for the second time in her career. She already served a ban for testing positive for banned blood booster EPO. This time she tested positive for testosterone. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) released a press statement on the matter.

    The 39-year-old was notified, the AU said on Thursday.

    Chepchirchir won the 2017 Tokyo Marathon in the time of 2:19:47 before super shoes. She was banned for four years in 2019, backdated to April 11, 2018, because of abnormalities in her Athlete Biological Passport (ABP).

    Her Tokyo win was an outlier in terms of performance level as well as her only big win. Her other marathon performances are five and 15 minutes slower.

    Kenya has a doping problem

    Wilson Kipsang was suspended in January 2020 whereabouts failures and tampering of samples by the AIU.

    World Athletics said between April 2018 and May 2019 the 38-year-old Kenyan, twice a London Marathon winner, had missed four “whereabouts appointments.”

    In June 2020, Kipsang was banned for four years for doping offenses. He had additionally tried to maintain that the missed testing appointment was due to a car accident, but it was established that the accident took place three months after the missed appointment.

    The X or tweet above is of Kipsang spending time with Chepchirchir.

    Chepchir’s first suspension…

    Kenya and India are leading the world of sport in doping positives. Currently, approximately 60 Kenyan athletes are serving suspensions for testing positive either in competition or out of competition, missing tests (whereabouts failures), ABP anomalies, or tampering.

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