Women’s marathon world record holder Ruth Chepngetich has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for using the prohibited substance hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ).<\/p>\n
The substance, a diuretic, was detected in a sample collected from the Kenyan athlete on March 14, the AIU said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“Chepngetich was not provisionally suspended by the AIU at the time of notification, however, on 19 April, she opted for a voluntary provisional suspension while the AIU’s investigation was ongoing,” AIU Head Brett Clothier said.<\/p>\n
“In the intervening months, the AIU continued its investigation and today issued a Notice of Charge and imposed its own provisional suspension.”<\/p>\n
The AIU said HCTZ was used clinically to treat fluid retention and hypertension, adding that diuretics may be abused to mask the presence in urine of other prohibited substances.<\/p>\n
Chepngetich smashed the women’s marathon record in Chicago last October, running two hours, nine minutes and 56 seconds to become the first woman to break 2:10.<\/p>\n
Chepngetich’s agent did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.<\/p>\n
In April, Chepngetich withdrew from the London Marathon, saying at the time she was “not in the right place mentally or physically” to race her best.<\/p>\n
Marathon running has been hit with a spate of high-profile doping cases in recent years, particularly from Kenya, which is world renowned for its middle and long-distance runners.<\/p>\n
In April 2023, Athletics Kenya said its government pledged $US5 million per year for five years to fight doping in athletics.<\/p>\n
In February 2024, Kenya’s Sarah Chepchirchir was hit with an eight-year ban after the former Tokyo Marathon winner was found to have violated anti-doping regulations for a second time.<\/p>\n
A year later, Kenyan marathon runner Brimin Kipkorir was also provisionally suspended by the AIU after he tested positive for prohibited substances.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women’s marathon world record holder Ruth Chepngetich has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,2435,2432,2434,2431,85,2433],"class_list":{"0":"post-1671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-doping","11":"tag-marathon","12":"tag-running","13":"tag-ruth-chepngetich","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-world-record-holder"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}