Seven Kenyan athletes banned for doping

Nairobi: Seven Kenyan athletes, including two-time cross-country world champion Emily Chebet received bans for doping offences on Friday.

Chebet, the cross-country world champion in 2010 and 2013, was banned for four years after testing positive for the diuretic and masking agent furosemide, the Kenyan athletics federation said.

The 29-year-old Chebet was also a bronze medalist in the 10,000 meters at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Her ban was backdated to July 17 and runs through until July 16, 2019, Xinhua news agency reported.

Beijing world championships participants Joyce Zakary and Koki Manunga each was banned for four years for furosemide.

Zakary, a 400-meter runner, and Manunga, a 400-meter hurdler, had been provisionally banned after they tested positive at August’s worlds.

The other four athletes banned on Friday were Agnes Jepkosgei, Bernard Mwendia, Judy Jesire Kimuge and Lilian Moraa Marita.

Jepkosgei was banned for four years for testing positive for the anabolic steroid metabolite norandrosterone. Mwendia was given a two-year ban for norandrosterone. Kimuge was banned two years for the norandrolone and Marita two years for the blood-booster EPO.

Some Kenyan athletes protested at Kenyan athletics’s federation this week, demanding the federation’s president Isaiah Kiplagat and vice president David Okeyo step down.

–IANS