Rhonex Kipruto: Kenyan world record holder banned for six years over Athlete Biological Passport irregularities

Kenya’s 10km road race world record holder Rhonex Kipruto has been banned for six years because of irregularities found in his Athlete Biological Passport.

The 24-year-old will be stripped of his record, which he set in Valencia in 2020, and the 10,000m bronze medal he won at the 2019 World Championships.

He will be banned until May 2029 after being provisionally suspended on 11 May 2023 for violating anti-doping rules.

An ABP is an electronic record which tracks an athlete’s biomarkers over their career. If these markers change dramatically it alerts officials that the athlete might be doping.

“The Tribunal rejected Kipruto’s defence, concluding the ’cause for the abnormalities in the ABP is more likely to be due to blood manipulation’ such as through the use of recombinant human erythropoietin (rEPO),” said the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), which has enforced the ban.

“There was ‘no other plausible explanation’ for the abnormal values.”

The disciplinary panel said it was “comfortably satisfied” the athlete had committed an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV).

Kipruto can appeal against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.