Reigning marathon world champion Peres Jepchirchir has been suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) after testing positive for EPO.
The 33-year-old returned an adverse analytical finding for the performance-enhancing drug in an out-of-competition sample taken in Kenya before her victory at the Sydney Marathon this August.
The AIU announced it had provisionally suspended Jepchirchir in a statement released on Friday, just a day after Ethiopia’s former Tokyo Marathon winner Ruti Aga was given a six-year ban for a positive test for methylprednisolone and tampering with the investigation.
The timing of Jepchirchir’s positive test, before her victory in Sydney, means the result is at risk of being struck from her record.
The Kenyan’s case could follow the pattern set by her compatriot, 2019 marathon world champion Ruth Chepng’etich. Chepng’etich was banned for three years from April 2025 after she tested positive for and admitted using the banned substance hydrochlorothiazide, a diuretic commonly used to mask the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
All of her results, titles, appearance and prize money from the date of her positive test in March 2025 were forfeited but her achievements and records from before the date of her positive test still stand, including her marathon world record, set in Chicago in 2024.
She was granted a one-year reduction from the automatic four-year ban after accepting the sanction within 20 days.
Jepchirchir is a four-time World Marathon Major winner and claimed Olympic gold in the marathon at Tokyo 2020, and is currently fifth in the world rankings.
She won the world marathon title for the first time in Tokyo last September, adding to her two individual half-marathon world titles, and is both a former world record holder in the half-marathon and a former women’s-only world record holder in the marathon, set when she won in London in 2024.
She withdrew from this year’s London Marathon due to a stress fracture sustained after finishing second in the Valencia marathon last December, making her return to top-level competition in Sydney.
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