Willis’ conqueror banned
Asbel Kiprop, the Kenyan who beat New Zealand’s Nick Willis to the Olympic Games 1500m gold medal in 2008, has been banned for four years for a doping offence detected in 2017.
The former Olympic and three-time world champion tested positive for the bloodboosting drug EPO. His claim that urine samples might have been tampered with by disreputable doping control officers was rejected.
Kiprop failed an out-ofcompetition test in his home country in November 2017. His backup ‘‘B’’ sample also tested positive for EPO.
The Kenyan was awarded the gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics after race winner Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain failed a doping test and had his medal stripped. Willis, who finished third in Beijing, was upgraded from a bronze medal to silver.
Willis tweeted news of Kiprop’s suspension, with a YouTube video link to the Kenyan’s blistering victory in a 2016 Diamond League race in Birmingham, where Kiprop recorded the fastest 1500m on British soil.
But his case was complicated when it was revealed he was given advance notice of the visit by Kenyan anti-doping officers – a breach of testing protocol. Outof-competition tests are meant to be sprung on athletes by surprise to ensure they have no time to flush any banned substances out of their systems.
Kiprop also conceded he paid money to one of the anti-doping officers following the test. He denied the doping charges and alleged he may have been framed.
Kiprop, 29, who won three straight world titles from 2011-2015, said his samples could have been tampered with when he left them unattended for a short time while he got his cellphone to make a money transfer to the anti-doping official.
In a separate defence, he also said the elevated levels of EPO in his system might have been ‘‘natural EPO’’ caused by intense training at high altitude in Kenya. Another defence Kiprop used was that medication he took a week before the test might have caused the positive result.
The Athletics Integrity Unit, which handles doping cases for the IAAF, rejected all of Kiprop’s explanations and banned him from competition until February 2022. His results from November 27, 2017, to February 3, 2018, were disqualified. The ban was backdated to start from February 2018.
‘‘There is no justice in the world,’’ Kiprop said in response to his ban. ‘‘Not every prisoner in jail is guilty. I will consult my lawyer to see if I will appeal at CAS [the Court of Arbitration for Sport], but no matter the outcome I will be back stronger.’’
But Kiprop’s denials throughout the case and a history of speaking out against doping could not outweigh the scientific evidence against him, the AIU disciplinary panel wrote in its decision.