Kenyan 10,000m runner Rodgers Kwemoi, Eliud Kipchoge’s former training partner, was banned for six years on Friday for suspected blood doping on 18 occasions and disqualified from the Olympics and world championships races.
Track and field’s Athletics Integrity Unit announced that Kwemoi was stripped of seven years’ worth of results through August 2023 due to a “deliberate, systematic, and sophisticated doping regime.”
As a result, he lost his seventh-place finish at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, his fourth-place finish at the 2019 World Championships in Qatar, and his bronze medal from the 2018 Commonwealth Games, among others.
Kwemoi also forfeited the world junior title he won in 2016, which he achieved with a championship record time.
The ban will end in August 2029, when Kwemoi will be 31 years old.
Although he did not test positive for banned substances, an investigation was launched based on suspicious blood values in his athlete biological passport, typically observed in the lead-up to major competitions.
An anti-doping tribunal concluded that “the use of blood manipulation over a prolonged period by the athlete was intentional,” according to a ruling published by the AIU.
Expert analysts stated in the ruling that his abnormal blood values in samples taken from July 2016 to February 2023 could not be explained by moving between high and low altitudes.
With Kwemoi’s disqualifications, his long-time rival, Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda, may be upgraded in two championship races. Kiplimo placed third at the 2016 World Junior Championships and fourth at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.
Kiplimo went on to win Olympic bronze in Tokyo and completed a 5,000m-10,000m title double at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.
Kewmoi split his time training between Kenya and Japan but was a former training partner of Eliud Kipchoge when he was training back home, running with the former world record holder’s Global Sports squad.
