Manangoi suspended for anti-doping rule violation

Commonwealth Games 1500m champion Elijah Manangoi has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for whereabouts failures.

Manangoi, the 2017 world champion has thus been barred from participating in the sport for an unspecified period as he waits for his hearing to take place and a ruling to be issued.

According to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), whereabouts are information provided by a limited number of top elite athletes about their location to the International Sport Federation (IF) or National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO) that included them in their respective registered testing pool as part of these top elite athletes’ anti-doping responsibilities.

WADA code on Anti-Doping Violations, article 2.4 on Whereabouts Failures states, “any combination of three missed tests and/or filing failures, as defined in the International Standard for Testing and Investigations, within a twelve-month period by an Athlete in a Registered Testing Pool.”

Under the regulations, athletes have to inform testing authorities of their whereabouts for a one-hour window of every day.

Manangoi won silver at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, China before clinching gold two years later in London. He however failed to defend his title at the 2019 World Championships in Doha after suffering an ankle injury.

After skipping the Doha fiesta, he made his first appearance this season at the Maurie Plant memorial virtual race on June 11 where he teamed up with world 1500m champion Timothy Cheruiyot and Edwin Meli as they faced Norwegian brothers Filip, Jakob and Henrik Ingebrigsten at the exhibition event.

Manangoi now becomes the latest high-profile Kenyan athlete to be suspended on the grounds of whereabouts failures.

Early this month, former world marathon record holder Wilson Kipsang was handed a four- year ban for whereabouts failures and tampering by providing false evidence.

A week later, Alex Korio Oloititip was slapped with a two-year ban also for whereabouts failure.

At the same time, another long-distance athlete Kenneth Kipkemoi has been handed a two-year ban for presence of a prohibited substance while Mercy Kibarus has been banned for eight years for a similar offence.

Moreover, Patrick Siele has been suspended for evading, refusing or failing to submit to sample collection.