The list goes on. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced that marathon runner Diana Chemtai Kipyokei (pictured above) has been suspended for six years for anti-doping violations. Unsurprisingly, the 28 year old is wearing the colors of Kenya, now the only country with the highest number of doping cases among its elite athletes. Winner of the Boston Marathon in 2021, she was provisionally sanctioned last October. Her suspension has now been confirmed. Diana Chemtai Kipyokei is guilty of having used a product banned since last January, triamcinolone. She is also sanctioned for having presented, in her defense, false medical documents. Doping cases often come in batches in Kenyan athletics, and the AIU also announced the five-year suspension of marathon runner Purity Cherotich Rionoripo. A 2017 Paris Marathon winner, she was convicted of doping with furosemide, a banned diuretic. The heaviness of her suspension is justified, like her compatriot, by the use of false documents. Threatened with suspension by World Athletics, Kenyan athletics escaped the worst last November when the board of the body opted for clemency after the government promised to invest five million dollars a year over the next five years to fund the fight against doping.
