Rhonex Kipruto Denies Doping in Emotional Response After CAS Reduces Ban: 'I Am Hurt'

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has reduced Kenyan runner Rhonex Kipruto's doping ban from six to five years, the court announced on Thursday.

The decision came after CAS partially upheld the middle-distance runner's appeal against World Athletics. Rhonex Kipruto was initially handed a six-year suspension on May 28, 2024, by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) Disciplinary Tribunal.

The tribunal concluded that irregularities found in his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) were the result of doping, specifically "likely due to blood manipulation," and rejected Rhonex Kipruto's defence.

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In June 2024, Rhonex Kipruto filed an appeal with CAS, seeking to have the AIU's decision overturned. The Kenyan athlete argued that he had not committed any anti-doping rule violation and that no period of ineligibility should be imposed.

Following written submissions from both parties, a hybrid hearing was held at the CAS headquarters in Lausanne on November 13 and 14, 2025.

After reviewing the scientific evidence and expert opinions, the CAS panel determined that Kipruto's blood profile was indeed the result of blood manipulation, constituting a doping offence.

The panel also found that the medical condition the athlete cited as an explanation did not meet the required diagnostic criteria. Consequently, it ruled that Kipruto had committed an anti-doping rule violation, as alleged by the AIU.

However, the panel re-evaluated the six-year ban, which consisted of a standard four-year penalty for an intentional violation plus two additional years for aggravating circumstances.

World Athletics had argued that these circumstances included multiple instances of blood doping and a "deliberate and sophisticated doping regimen."

The CAS panel concluded that, based on the principle of proportionality, the aggravating factors warranted an additional one-year ban rather than two. As a result, the total sanction was reduced to five years.

All of Rhonex Kipruto's results from September 2, 2018, to May 11, 2023, the date his provisional suspension began, remain disqualified.

Rhonex Kipruto has maintained his innocence in response to the findings in his doping case, insisting that he did not engage in any form of cheating and expressing deep disappointment that his position has not been accepted.

He conveyed emotional distress over the outcome, saying he felt hurt that his side of the story had not prevailed and describing the process as overwhelming due to what he perceived as a rigid and unforgiving anti-doping framework that he has always claimed to respect as a clean athlete.

Rhonex Kipruto further reflected on the wider impact of the case, suggesting that it has been painful to witness the sport he values turn against its own competitors, and that facing a large team of legal and scientific experts created a sense of being targeted rather than fairly evaluated.

Kipruto added that the experience has left him emotionally drained and in need of recovery time, admitting uncertainty about what lies ahead in his career while stating that he intends to rely on faith and patience as he navigates the period following the ruling.

"I didn' cheat nor dope! I am hurt that the truth hasn’t come out, and I am at the same time devastated by the prosecution, by the inflexibility of the anti-doping system, which I have always respected and supported as a clean athlete," Rhonex Kipruto said in a statement released by his training camp.

"It is extremely painful to watch sport fight its own main protagonists, and it is extremely painful to be faced with an army of experts and lawyers, who seem interested only in finding an athlete guilty, and not in search for the truth. My heart is heavy and there is a lot of healing that awaits me. I don’t know what the future holds, it is time to pray and remain steadfast in faith."