Wilson Kipsang banned from athletics for four years after fabricating story about landslide

The former marathon world record holder Wilson Kipsang has been banned from athletics for four years after missing three anti-doping tests and lying about his reasons for missing them.

Three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period automatically triggers a suspension, and Kipsang committed four – three missed tests and one occasion on which he failed to accurately provide his location. He was provisionally suspended on 10 January and requested a disciplinary tribunal hearing, but his appeal has been emphatically rejected.

Kipsang explained to the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) investigating his case that the fourth and most recent missed test, on 17 May 2019, was the result of being held up by a road traffic accident due to a landslide in heavy rainfall near the Kenyan city of Nakuru. He submitted a photo of an upturned truck by way of explanation.

However the AIU found that rainfall around Nakuru in the lead-up to 17 May had been unremarkable and unlikely to cause a landslide. It also discovered that the photo Kipsang claimed to have taken that day actually showed a road traffic accident which occurred three months later.

In its report of the case the AIU said: “The athlete engaged in fraudulent and deceitful conduct by providing deliberately misleading and false information to the AIU in an attempt to obstruct and delay the infestation into his explanation and/or prevent normal procedures from occurring, namely the recording of a Missed Test against him.”

The Kenyan’s ban has been backdated to begin from 10 January 2020, but given Kipsang is 38 it effectively brings his glistening marathon career to an end.

Kipsang won Olympic bronze at London 2012, as well as marathons in Tokyo, New York and Berlin and won the London Marathon in 2012 and again in 2014.