🔗 Share this article

Female long-distance global champion Ruth Chepngetich has been suspended for 36 months after the runner confessed to anti-doping rule violations.

The record holder was provisionally suspended in the seventh month following a failed test for a banned substance - a banned diuretic often utilized as a masking agent - on March 14.

Chepngetich's achievements which pre-date that sample - such as her world record time of two hours, nine minutes and 56 seconds in the Chicago event in 2024 - will still stand.

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) had sought a four-year suspension but the runner's punishment was lowered to three years because she admitted to the violations.

Nonetheless, the integrity unit will continue to investigate evidence from Chepngetich's mobile device which it found suggest "strong grounds that her positive test may have been deliberate" - including communications from as early as the year 2022.

"The case regarding the positive test for the substance has been settled, but the AIU will keep looking into the questionable evidence found on the runner's device to ascertain if any further infractions have occurred."

'Nobody is above the rules'

When interviewed in April by the integrity body, Chepngetich, the first woman to complete a marathon in less than 2 hours 10 minutes, was unable to give an explanation for the positive test.

Although HCTZ has a minimum reporting level of 20 nanograms per millilitre (ng/mL) in urine, the athlete's sample showed an estimated concentration of 3800 ng/mL.

Traces of HCTZ below the minimal reporting level were also found in a test taken from the runner two weeks earlier, on 28 February.

At a subsequent meeting on July 11, Chepngetich was presented with the aforementioned suspicious evidence acquired from her mobile. In the meantime, contamination had also been ruled out by the authority.

Chepngetich changed her explanation on 31 July, claiming that she had used her domestic worker's medication - marked as being the banned substance - after becoming ill two days before the positive test.

The unit had "major doubts about the credibility of the new version of events" and, in the framework of the sport's doping rules, such "carelessness" is deemed "implied intention, for which an increased four-year sanction applies".

An standard 12-month decrease was applied after the runner confessed to the anti-doping breaches inside the 20 days required.

The 36-month suspension started on 19 April - when Chepngetich accepted a voluntary provisional suspension - with the runner's results, honors, championships, participation and prize money from March 14 forfeited.

"Nobody is above the rules."

"Although unfortunate for those who had faith in this runner, this is how the system is supposed to work."

"Marathon organizers should be praised for collectively funding anti-doping efforts capable of revealing doping violations performed by top competitors in their races."