The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has released the full arbitral award in the case involving Kenyan long-distance runner Rhonex Kipruto and World Athletics, detailing the scientific evidence, legal arguments and expert testimony that led to the upholding of his six-year ban for an anti-doping rule violation linked to his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP).
The award follows Kipruto’s appeal against the decision of the World Athletics Disciplinary Tribunal, which in May 2024 found that the athlete had committed a doping violation under Article 2.2 of the anti-doping rules relating to the use of a prohibited substance or method.
CAS documents show that World Athletics’ expert panel identified multiple abnormalities within Kipruto’s blood profile between 2018 and 2022, including unusually high haemoglobin values and abnormal reticulocyte fluctuations that experts said were strongly indicative of blood manipulation and the use of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESA).
In his defence, Kipruto denied any doping offence and attributed the irregularities in his biological passport to a combination of alcohol abuse, dehydration, illness, inconsistent training patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic and police training duties in Kenya.
He also relied heavily on testimony from veteran coach Brother Colm O’Connell, who described Kipruto as an honest athlete whose lifestyle changed significantly during the pandemic period. O’Connell told the panel that the idea of Kipruto doping was “completely not in keeping with the character I know.”
Kipruto’s legal team further argued that alcohol consumption had affected his blood markers and pointed to medical assessments suggesting possible underlying haematological conditions, including neutropenia, mild G6PD deficiency and potential congenital erythrocytosis.
However, the Joint Expert Panel appointed by World Athletics repeatedly rejected those explanations across several expert opinions submitted during the proceedings. The panel maintained that neither alcohol abuse, infections, altitude exposure, nor training disruptions could sufficiently explain the abnormalities detected in the athlete’s biological passport.
The CAS award reveals that experts considered several blood samples particularly suspicious, including Sample 2 from September 2018, which showed high haemoglobin levels combined with suppressed immature reticulocyte fractions, a pattern experts said was characteristic of discontinued ESA use.
Additional concern centred on samples collected during 2020 and 2021, where experts noted unexplained spikes in reticulocyte percentages and fluctuations inconsistent with the athlete’s stated training load and medical history.
The panel also dismissed claims that doping would have made little sense during the COVID-19 shutdown period, arguing that blood manipulation could still enhance oxygen transport and improve long-term training adaptation even outside competition periods.
In its conclusion, the CAS panel upheld the World Athletics sanction, confirming six years of ineligibility beginning from the date of the disciplinary award. The ruling also maintained the disqualification of all Kipruto’s competitive results from September 2, 2018, to May 11, 2023, including forfeiture of titles, prize money and records.
Kipruto, who rose to global prominence after winning bronze in the men’s 10,000 metres at the 2019 World Championships in Doha and later setting a world record in the 10km road race in Valencia, had continued to insist throughout the proceedings that he never used banned substances or methods.
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