The Athletics Integrity Unit has provisionally suspended reigning world marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir after an out-of-competition sample collected in Kenya returned an adverse analytical finding for EPO. The sample was taken before her Sydney Marathon victory this summer.

Jepchirchir is one of the most decorated marathoners of her generation: the Tokyo Olympic champion (2021), reigning world champion (2025) and four-time World Marathon Major winner: New York (2021), Boston (2022), London (2024) and Sydney (2026). She is also the former half marathon world record holder.

The provisional suspension is not a definitive finding of guilt. She can request analysis of the B sample, and the case proceeds to a charge or is closed depending on what follows. EPO is a non-specified substance under S2 of the Prohibited List, and the default sanction for an intentional violation is four years.

The sample predates Sydney. If the finding holds, results from the collection date forward are subject to disqualification, which would put the Sydney title and the prize money with it in question. However, Jepchirchir is likely to hold on to her other medals, titles and prize money.

More than 130 Kenyan athletes are currently banned or provisionally suspended. This comes one day after the AIU banned former Tokyo Marathon champion Ruti Aga for six years.

Two of the last three Olympic women’s marathon champions have now faced doping suspensions related to EPO after winning gold. Jemima Sumgong became the first Kenyan woman to win Olympic marathon gold in 2016. Less than a year later, she tested positive for EPO and received a four-year ban, which was later increased to eight years following a separate tampering violation involving fabricated medical records.

Jepchirchir’s Remarkable Career

Jepchirchir has one of the most decorated marathoning résumés in history, and if she is banned, it would be one of the biggest doping busts in the sport.

• 2016 & 2020: Won two World Half Marathon Championship titles. Twice broke the women’s-only half marathon world record, ultimately running 1:05:16 to win her second world title.
• 2021: Won Olympic marathon gold in Tokyo, then won the New York City Marathon just 92 days later to become the first athlete to win Olympic marathon gold and NYC in the same year.
• 2022: Won Boston, becoming the first athlete, male or female, to win the Olympic, NYC and Boston marathons consecutively.
• 2024: Set a women’s-only marathon world record of 2:16:16 at London, breaking Mary Keitany’s 2:17:01 mark from 2017.
• 2025: Won the World Championships marathon in Tokyo. Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa earned a silver medal. Uruguay’s Julia Paternain took bronze. America’s Susanna Sullivan finished fourth and missed a medal by 54 seconds.
• 2025: Ran a 2:14:43 marathon PB in Valencia, the sixth-fastest women’s marathon performance in history at the time.

She is currently the ninth-fastest women’s marathoner in history.

What They’re Saying

Gianni Demadonna, Jepchirchir’s agent, emailed the following statement to NBC Sports and Runner’s World: “I can only say that I feel terrible about what happened and I think it’s only right that an athlete who uses the performance enhancing drugs should be disqualified.”

Sydney Marathon organizers issued the following statement: “The TCS Sydney Marathon presented by ASICS is extremely disappointed to learn that Peres Jepchirchir (KEN) has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), after an out-of-competition sample collected in Kenya prior to the TCS Sydney Marathon, held on 30 August 2026, returned an adverse analytical finding for EPO.

Jepchirchir is entitled to due process, and we will make no further comment on the case until that process has concluded.

Our commitment to clean sport is unwavering. Every athlete who lines up in Sydney deserves to race on a level playing field, and every participant and spectator deserves to trust the result they see at the finish line. That conviction is why, alongside our fellow Abbott World Marathon Majors, we have invested in increased out-of-competition testing in partnership with the AIU, and why we will keep standing firmly with the athletes who compete cleanly. Under Abbott World Marathon Majors rules, any athlete banned for a doping offence of three months or more is banned for life from all eight Majors.”