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≡ CHEPNGETICH SUSPENDED ≡
“Women’s marathon world record-holder, Ruth Chepng’etich, has been banned for three years by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), after admitting to Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) regarding the presence and use of Hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ).”
That’s from the Thursday announcement by the Athletics Integrity Unit, which explained in detail the circumstances:
● “The 31-year-old Kenyan, a former World marathon champion and a three-time winner of the Chicago Marathon, accepted the charges and sanction following a positive test for the banned diuretic from a sample on 14 March this year and a subsequent AIU investigation into the circumstances.”
● “Whilst diuretics are known to be abused by athletes to mask the presence in urine of other Prohibited Substances, HCTZ has also been identified as a potential contaminant in pharmaceutical products. It has been ascribed by WADA a minimum reporting limit of 20ng/ml, below which a positive test should not be reported. An estimated concentration of 3800ng/mL of HCTZ was found in the positive urine sample of Chepng’etich.”
● “[O]n 11 July 2025, Chepng’etich was confronted with evidence acquired from her mobile telephone indicating a reasonable suspicion that her positive test may have been intentional. She was also informed that all the supplements and medications that had been taken for analysis had been reported by a WADA-accredited laboratory as negative for HCTZ. Chepngetich maintained her position at this second interview that she could not explain the positive test and that she had never doped.”
● “On 31 July 2025, Chepng’etich changed her previous explanation. She wrote to the AIU to state that she now recalled that she had taken ill two days before the positive test and she had taken her housemaid’s medication as treatment, without taking any steps to verify if it contained a prohibited substance. She stated that she had forgotten to disclose this incident to the AIU investigators. She sent a photo of the medication blister pack which clearly marked the medication as being ‘Hydrochlorothiazide’.”
The AIU stated that it found “her new explanation to be hardly credible,” and not only imposed the standard two-year ban for HCTZ, but:
“To the contrary, the ADR treats the type of recklessness described by Chepng’etich in taking her housemaid’s medication as being indirect intent, for which an increased four-year sanction applies.”
Because Chepngetich accepted the penalty within 20 days of notification, she received a one-year reduction in the ban.
That means she is banned for three years from 19 April 2025 and would be technically eligible for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, which begins on 14 July. Her results are nullified from 14 March 2025; her last race was on 9 March, second place at the Lisbon Half.
Her world record of 2:09:56 at the Chicago Marathon from 2024 continues in force and her wins at the 2019 World Championships and her nine wins in 15 career marathons are unaffected.
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