2012 Boston Marathon medallist receives 4-year doping ban

One more Kenyan runner has been busted for an anti-doping violation, because the Anti-Doping Company of Kenya issued Georgina Rono a four-year ban from competitors on Tuesday. Though she didn’t check constructive for any banned substances, Rono nonetheless violated anti-doping guidelines, as she reportedly evaded a drug check. Rono completed third on the 2012 Boston Marathon, and though she has not competed since 2021, her ban solely provides to the rising checklist of Kenyan athletes implicated in doping scandals. Rono won’t be able to race once more till January 2027.

ADAK has banned Georgina Rono for 4 years after she failed to supply blood and urine samples and disappeared right into a maize farm. #DeadlineDay pic.twitter.com/NXAhTK7rjM

— House of Champions (@ItenDaily) January 31, 2023

Rono’s profession 

The spotlight of Rono’s profession is undoubtedly her podium efficiency in Boston in 2012, however an in depth second must be her win on the Hamburg Marathon in 2014. She owns a 2:21:39 private finest from the 2012 Frankfurt Marathon, the place she completed second, and he or she additionally grabbed a second-place end on the Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Worldwide Half Marathon that 12 months. Rono has not competed since 2021, when she raced the Eldoret Metropolis Marathon in Kenya, though she registered a DNF. Her final recorded end in a race came to visit three years in the past on the 2019 Customary Chartered Nairobi Marathon, the place she completed fifth. 

Kenya’s doping drawback 

Whereas Kenya has been probably the most profitable international locations in the case of athletics on the Olympic Video games (Kenyans have gained 66 Olympic medals on the observe and street for the reason that 2000 Summer season Video games in Sydney), it is usually one of many international locations with the worst and most troubling observe information in the case of doping. There are at the moment greater than 50 Kenyan athletes on the Athletics Integrity Unit’s checklist of World Checklist of Ineligible Individuals. 

One other increase for Kenyan athletes as @wada_ama clears Kenya from potential athletics doping ban.
 
It is time to elevate Kenya’s flag excessive by exhibiting the world we’re able to breaking information whereas staying true to ourselves.
 
 #Save your well being & your profession,keep away from #doping. pic.twitter.com/foHiNANpFG

— Nationwide Youth Council Kenya (@NYC_YouthVoice) December 1, 2022

“Over the course of 1 12 months, 40 per cent of all of the [positive drug tests] recorded in world athletics are in Kenya,” World Athletics (WA) president Seb Coe stated following a 2022 WA council assembly. Coe added that WA has been eyeing the ever-growing doping points in Kenya for a while, and he and his crew critically thought of issuing an outright ban of all Kenyan athletes till the issue was sorted. 

Happily for the clear Kenyan athletes (and the various athletics followers who love watching them compete), Coe and WA didn’t ban them after the Kenyan authorities dedicated to dedicating $5 million a 12 months over the following 5 years to enhance the nation’s anti-doping program.