(Reuters) – Kenya’s 2014 Commonwealth Games and Africa 10,000 metres champion Joyce Chepkirui was banned for four years, dated back to 2019, on Wednesday for an Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) discrepancy.
The 33-year-old long distance runner had been provisionally suspended since July 2019 after anomalies in blood samples collected by World Athletics between 2016 and 2017.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said an appeal by World Athletics had been upheld, with Chepkirui banned from June 28, 2019.
She was also disqualified from results from April 6, 2016, to August 4, 2017, a period that includes her third place in the 2016 Boston Marathon.
The CAS also ordered Kenya’s anti-doping agency to pay 2,000 Swiss francs ($2,139.95) to World Athletics as a contribution to legal costs and other expenses incurred. ($1 = 0.9346 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)
