Marathon world champion Peres Jepchirchir suspended for constructive doping take a look at

Reigning marathon world champion Peres Jepchirchir has been suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) after testing constructive for EPO.

The 33-year-old returned an hostile analytical discovering for the performance-enhancing drug in an out-of-competition pattern taken in Kenya earlier than her victory on the Sydney Marathon this August.

The AIU introduced it had provisionally suspended Jepchirchir in a press release launched on Friday, only a day after Ethiopia’s former Tokyo Marathon winner Ruti Aga was given a six-year ban for a constructive take a look at for methylprednisolone and tampering with the investigation.

The timing of Jepchirchir’s constructive take a look at, earlier than her victory in Sydney, means the result’s susceptible to being struck from her report.

The Kenyan’s case might comply with the sample set by her compatriot, 2019 marathon world champion Ruth Chepng’etich. Chepng’etich was banned for 3 years from April 2025 after she examined constructive for and admitted utilizing the banned substance hydrochlorothiazide, a diuretic generally used to masks the usage of performance-enhancing medicine.

All of her outcomes, titles, look and prize cash from the date of her constructive take a look at in March 2025 had been forfeited however her achievements and information from earlier than the date of her constructive take a look at nonetheless stand, together with her marathon world report, set in Chicago in 2024.

She was granted a one-year discount from the automated four-year ban after accepting the sanction inside 20 days.

Jepchirchir is a four-time World Marathon Main winner and claimed Olympic gold within the marathon at Tokyo 2020, and is at present fifth on this planet rankings.

She received the world marathon title for the primary time in Tokyo final September, including to her two particular person half-marathon world titles, and is each a former world report holder within the half-marathon and a former ladies’s-only world report holder within the marathon, set when she received in London in 2024.

She withdrew from this 12 months’s London Marathon as a consequence of a stress fracture sustained after ending second within the Valencia marathon final December, making her return to top-level competitors in Sydney. She dominated the occasion, ending in 2:18:31, over three minutes away from second-placed ‌compatriot Irine Cheptai.

The Sydney Marathon launched a press release saying it was “extraordinarily upset” to listen to of Jepchirchir’s constructive take a look at.

It mentioned: “Our dedication to wash sport is ​unwavering. Each athlete who traces up in Sydney deserves to race ‌on a degree taking part in subject.”