Kenyan Peres Jepchirchir, one of the greatest marathon runners of the century, tests positive for EPO

When on August 30, Peres Jepchirchir achieved his fourth major (after New York 21, Boston 22 and London 24) by winning the Sydney Marathon, the entire athletics world recognized it as the greatest of the decade. In times of uncertainty about the tremendous extent of doping in Kenya and Ethiopia, Peres Jepchirchir, 33, was a sure thing. Olympic champion in Tokyo 21 (marathon held in Sapporo), world champion in Tokyo 25, former world record holder in marathon run only by women and half marathon, and ninth best mark in history with 2h 14m 43s achieved in Valencia last December, the Kenyan athlete was one to believe in. That's why the announcement from the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) was so chilling. In an anti-doping control carried out just before the summer test in Sydney, Jepchirchir, kalenji from Turbo, in the Rift Valley, like the greatest long-distance runners in history, small and tireless, had tested positive for EPO, perhaps the most detectable method of doping.

Jepchirchir offers more reasons to incredulous and skeptics and thus increases the long list of glories of Kenyan athletics dethroned by cold laboratory analysis, almost two hundred, headed by Ruth Chepngetich, the only woman who has gone below 2h 10m with 2h 9m 56s (Chicago 2024), a mark that is still considered a world record despite the fact that its author was suspended eight months later after giving positive for a diuretic.

Jepchirchir is part of the group of athletes of veteran Italian manager Gianni Dimadonna, who has never suffered a sanction despite the fact that at least half a dozen of his athletes have been suspended for doping. Other Italian coaches and agents who have contributed to the massification and greatness of Kenyan athletics, such as Federico Rosa or Claudio Berardelli, also have a track record of positive results. Recently asked by Athletics Illustrated magazine if he offered his athletes anti-doping education, Dimadonna responded that this was a matter for the anti-doping agencies, which every four months or so organized seminars explaining the dangers and consequences of doping, surely less decisive for their future lives than the economic security garnered with records, titles and victories.

The positive result of one of the best athletes in the world comes a few weeks after the president of World Athletics, Sebatian Coe, announced that the 2029 World Athletics Championships will be held in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. To calm criticism, Coe promised that the fight against doping in the country would be increased. Shortly after, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Witold Banka, demanded that Kenya must be exemplary in the fight against doping, and the country's government, even knowing that this could ruin the future of many of its citizens who find long-distance running the only way to achieve economic sufficiency, announced an increase in the budget for the task.

Jepchirchir has not yet announced whether she will request a counteranalysis of her urine and, if the process confirms the positive result, she could be punished with a four-year suspension.