Peres Jepchirchir Provisionally Suspended After EPO-Positive Test
Peres Jepchirchir, the Olympic women's marathon champion, has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), the sport's independent anti-doping body, after an out-of-competition sample tested positive for EPO.
EPO, short for erythropoietin, is a hormone that increases the number of red blood cells carrying oxygen around the body. It is banned in athletics. An out-of-competition test is taken away from races, at a time the athlete has not been told in advance.
According to the BBC, the sample was provided in Kenya before the Sydney Marathon on 30 August 2026. Jepchirchir won that race in 2 hours, 18 minutes and 31 seconds, more than three minutes ahead of Irene Chepet Cheptai. The Sydney result is now linked to a case that has not been decided.
Her record in the marathon is long. She won the Olympic title at Tokyo 2020, and she won the world championship marathon in Tokyo in September 2025. She has also won New York in 2021, Boston in 2022 and London in 2024. Sydney joined the World Marathon Majors in 2025 as the seventh race in that series of six-plus-one city marathons.
A provisional suspension is a temporary bar from competing in athletics while a case is examined. It is not a final decision. The case will now move through the AIU's process, and any outcome will come from that process rather than from the initial suspension.
Why does this matter beyond one runner? Marathon results are a measure of who ran fastest on a given day, and doping rules exist so that those comparisons stay fair for every athlete on the start line. Fans who followed Jepchirchir's rise, from her Olympic gold to her world title, now face a result that sits under a cloud of question rather than settled history.
For now, the facts are narrow. A sample taken outside competition tested positive for a banned substance, and the AIU has imposed a temporary suspension. Jepchirchir's own response and the next steps in the case will be the main thing to watch.
