Korir tested positive for a drug that stimulates red blood cell production during out-of-competition tests.<\/p>\n
Published On 30 Mar 202630 Mar 2026<\/p>\n
Kenya\u2019s 2021 New York City Marathon champion Albert Korir has been banned for five years after he admitted using a banned performance-enhancing drug, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) says.<\/p>\n
The AIU said on Monday that Korir had received a one-year reduction from the original six-year suspension \u201cbased on an early admission and acceptance of the sanction\u201d.<\/p>\n
Korir, 32, tested positive for the synthetic form of erythropoietin (EPO), which stimulates red blood cell production, during out-of-competition tests in Kenya in October.<\/p>\n
His five-year ban will run from January 8, the date he was provisionally suspended, until January 7, 2031.<\/p>\n
Korir won the 2021 New York marathon in a time of 2 hours, 8 minutes, 22 seconds and came third in 2023 with a personal best time of 2:06:57.<\/p>\n
He won the Ottawa Marathon in 2019 and 2025.<\/p>\n
Korir\u2019s sanction comes nearly six months after compatriot Ruth Chepngetich, the current world marathon record holder, was banned for three years after admitting the use of hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ), a banned diuretic used as a masking agent.<\/p>\n
Kenya worked to clean up its image after a string of doping scandals around the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics led to it being declared noncompliant by the World Anti-Doping Agency.<\/p>\n
More than 140 Kenyan runners, mainly long-distance athletes, have been sanctioned for drugs offences since then.<\/p>\n
In June 2024, Kenya handed out its first lifetime ban to marathon runner Beatrice Toroitich and a six-year ban to 10km record holder Rhonex Kipruto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Korir tested positive for a drug that stimulates red blood cell production during out-of-competition tests. Published On 30…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9489,14275,16565,9,24,55,54,12,56,4875],"class_list":["post-180029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-africa","tag-athletics","tag-kenya","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}