© Copyright – 2025 – Athletics Illustrated

Phanuel Kipkosgei Koech is an 18-year-old Kenyan middle-distance runner who defeated world champion Josh Kerr during the 2025 London Diamond League meet. The teenager clocked a 1500 metre performance of 3:28.82, which is the new meet record. Kerr finished second in 3:29.37. Taking third was Isaac Nader of Portugal, well back at 3:31.55.

Koech was expected to run well as he took the world U20 record on June 20 at the Paris Diamond League meet in the Stade Charléty in 3:27.72.

How can this be?

Kerr holds the British national record at 3:27.79 from the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The 27-year-old ran for all that he was worth to earn the Olympic silver medal. Koech ran faster at the age of 18 years, six months and 19 days.

In history, there have been only 18 faster performances by nine athletes than Koech. They include Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, who holds the current world record of 3:26.00 from 1998. El Guerrouj has nine performances faster than Koech’s. Bernard Lagat, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Cole Hocker, Noureddine Morceli, Silas Kiplagat, and Kenyan drug cheat Asbel Kiprop have also run faster. That’s it.

Considering the extreme rate of doping that goes on in Kenya, Koech’s performance should raise eyebrows. While age cheating is another phenomenon in East Africa, this should also be considered. Any athlete under 3:30.00 is an outlier of talent; however, El Guerrouj is a historic, head-scratching exception. Based on Koech running nearly as fast at the age of 18, this points to him surpassing the Moroccan soon, perhaps in a global championship.

This level of performance does not make sense.

Is he about to become the greatest middle-distance athlete in history?

Teenage Kenyans have doped before

Angela Ndungwa Munguti was suspended for four years at the age of 17. The African Youth Games 800-metre silver medallist tested positive for Norandrosterone, a metabolite of nandrolone, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) ruled in 2019.

It has happened in Ethiopia, too. Nineteen-year-old Ethiopian, Berehanu Tsegu, who was the African Games 10,000-metre champion, was provisionally suspended by the AIU after testing positive for testing positive for Erythropoietin (EPO).

In 2024, a teenage athlete from Suriname tested positive for metabolites of GW1516 in an out-of-competition test. Issamade Asinga was banned by the AIU for four years.

Asinga was born in Atlanta and grew up in Zambia, where his mother, Ngozi Mwanamwambwa, was born. His father is former track and field athlete Tommy Asinga. The senior Asinga continues to hold the Surinamese national records for 400m, 800m and 1500m, and competed at three Olympic Games, Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992, and Atlanta 1996.

There is no way that the AIU is catching 100 per cent of all athletes who dope. While the organization is doing great work, these are not the first teenage athletes to cheat.

Investigations should not stop at simply determining if a teenage athlete doped, but who their coaches, agents and parents are. How are teenagers in third-world countries getting their hands on banned performance-enhancing drugs?

This has got to stop.

 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR