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Olympic silver medallist race walker, Koki Ikeda, of Japan has been provisionally suspended for suspected blood doping. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) made the announcement on Friday, November 1.
The now 26-year-old won the silver medal during the 20-kilometre racewalk competition during the Tokyo Olympic Games that took place in Sapporo. Ikeda also won silver at the 2022 Eugene World Athletics Championships in the same event. There is no indication of how long he was been doping for, but he won the World Cup in 2018 at age 20.
Ikeda’s personal best was set in February 2024 at 1:16:51 in Kobe.
Ikeda said, “For reasons that I know absolutely nothing about, I may not be able to compete in my next race and I am completely bewildered.”
Ikeda has pleaded for understanding as he claims to not know how he failed a blood test.
Ikeda was notified of a charge based on suspicious readings in his biological passport, the Associated Press said. The passport can give indications of doping over time without an athlete testing positive for a banned drug. The indicated are typically unnatural changes in the athlete’s blood profile. The Athlete Biological Passport is a record of an athlete’s blood tests results throughout their career.
Like much of athletics, race walking is an event that has a history of doping, specifically around the Russian program, where it appears that most or all of the Russians tested positive and or were implicated in the Russian systematic doping program.
