The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has delivered its final ruling in case CAS 2024/A/10704 involving a Kenyan long-distance runner and World Athletics. CAS, in its ruling, disqualified the Rhonex Kipruto’s results from 2018 to 2023.
The ruling, issued on April 16, 2026, upheld an appeal decision confirming that the athlete committed an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) under Rule 2.2 of the World Athletics Anti-Doping Regulations.
CAS imposed a five-year period of ineligibility on Rhonex Kipruto, after partially reducing an earlier six-year sanction issued by the Disciplinary Tribunal.
According to the ruling, the final sanction consisted of a four-year base penalty for intentional blood manipulation, and an additional one-year increase due to aggravating circumstances linked to repeated violations.
In addition to the suspension, CAS ordered the disqualification of all competitive results obtained between September 2, 2018, and May 11, 2023, including the forfeiture of medals, titles, prizes, and ranking points.
“As to sanction: A period of ineligibility shall be imposed on the Athlete of five years, the Athlete’s results from 2 September 2018 to 11 May 2023 are disqualified,” CAS stated in its rulling.
Rhonex Kipruto’s sanction takes effect from May 28, 2024, with credit given for a provisional suspension already served since May 11, 2023.
Rhonex Kipruto Anti-Doping Case and ABP Irregularities
From the CAS ruling, the case centers on Kipruto’s Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), a monitoring system used by World Athletics to detect irregularities in an athlete’s blood profile over time.
The ABP relies on statistical modeling to track biological markers such as haemoglobin levels and reticulocyte percentages.
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Between July 2018 and March 2022, Rhonex Kipruto provided 32 blood samples, several of which were flagged as “Atypical Passport Findings” due to significant fluctuations beyond his individual biological limits.
These irregularities formed the basis of disciplinary proceedings initiated by the Athletics Integrity Unit. Kipruto, who won bronze at the 2019 World Championships and placed eighth at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, challenged the findings, arguing that medical conditions, training disruptions, and lifestyle factors influenced his blood values.
Rhonex Kipruto cited possible genetic disorders, effects of alcohol consumption, and inconsistent training during the COVID-19 period as explanations for the abnormal results.
Court Findings
CAS reviewed extensive expert evidence, including five joint expert panel opinions that consistently concluded Kipruto’s blood profile was highly likely the result of blood manipulation and highly unlikely to be explained by natural causes.
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The tribunal rejected the athlete’s genetic defense, noting the absence of medical evidence supporting conditions such as Primary Inherited Erythrocytosis or related disorders.
“The Panel does not therefore consider these various other points such as the integrity and viability of some of the abnormal samples (no longer advanced) or that the abnormalities were caused by neutropenia (now agreed between the Joint Expert Panel and Prof. Brandt as “irrelevant”) and deals only with the explanations relied upon by the Athlete before the Panel,” CAS ruled.
It also dismissed the alcohol-related argument, stating that alcohol consumption typically leads to reduced haemoglobin concentration, not the elevated spikes observed in the athlete’s data.
The panel further found that periods of abnormal blood values coincided with major competitions, including the Valencia Half Marathon and Kenyan Olympic trials, reinforcing the inference of a doping pattern.
CAS determined that the evidence met the standard of “comfortable satisfaction,” confirming an intentional anti-doping violation.
