Kenyan distance runner Rhonex Kipruto, the world record holder for 10km on the road and trained by celebrated Irish coach Brother Colm O’Connell, has been banned for six years for doping offences.
Also a former World Championship 10,000 metres bronze medallist on the track, Kipruto’s ban was announced by the Athletics Integrity Unit on Thursday, after a disciplinary tribunal ruled irregularities in his athlete biological passport (ABP) could only have resulted from doping.
After considering submissions from experts, 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), while pointing out there was “no other plausible explanation” for the abnormal values.
The panel added that Kipruto’s blood samples pointed to “a deliberate and sophisticated doping regime” and he likely had help from unknown third parties. At the time, he was aiming to qualify for the last summer Olympics in Tokyo.
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The panel imposed a six-year ban because of what it deemed the “aggravating circumstances” in the case, increasing the standard four-year doping ban.
Kipruto was disqualified from all of his results since September 2018, meaning he loses his World Championship bronze medal in the 10,000m from 2019 and his 10k road record from 2020.
The panel also said Kipruto’s defence sought to blame illnesses, irregular training habits and his alcohol use, which it said had increased during the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is the latest in a series of doping offences involving Kenyan distance runners. Fellow Kenyan runner Rodgers Kwemoi, who placed fourth behind Kipruto in the world championship 10,000 in 2019, was banned for six years last month in a similar case based around blood sample data.
The now 24-year-old Kipruto was provisionally suspended in May of last year, after irregularities were detected in his ABP dating back to July 2018. He is now banned until May 2029.
He had trained under O’Connell since first joining his St Patrick’s High School training camp in Iten as a 15-year-old, and clocked 26:24 in Valencia in January 2020, setting the world 10km record on the road.
That performance came four months after he won 10,000m bronze at the 2019 World Championships in Doha. In 2018, he won the World Under-20 10,000m title in Finland.
Speaking at the time of Kipruto’s provisional suspension, O’Connell denied any knowledge or involvement of the doping offence, describing Kipruto as a “clean” runner.
“I carefully choose who I work with and to whom I dedicate my energy,” O’Connell said in a statement, as reported by Athletics Weekly. “I know Rhonex is an honest young man and it hurts me to see him suffering now.
“Our strategy is to train hard, and that’s the only way we achieve results. I have said many times that I am in favour of systematically combating doping so that we can protect clean athletes like Rhonex.”
Speaking to The Irish Times in 2019, when O’Connell was accepting the World Athletics Coaching Achievement award in Monaco, having been successfully training Kenyan runners since 1976, he spoke about never once experiencing doping in Kenya first-hand.
“In my time, in my group, I have never witnessed anyone get involved,” he said. “Still it is disappointing, hugely. Because you’re working in that environment all the time, where what you do is coming into question, or any performance is tainted.”
In November 2022, World Athletics decided against imposing an outright ban on Kenya, despite their ongoing and still escalating spate of doping offences.
