Kenyan middle distance runner Nelly Jepkosgei banned after giving fake evidence for missed test

Jepkosgei has been banned for three years after accepting a charge of tampering with evidence, a violation of World Athletics’ anti-doping rules, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Tuesday.

Jepkosgei, who is ranked 27th in the world in the women’s 800m, missed a doping test on March 18 and offered fake evidence in the form of a forged document to explain the whereabouts failure, the AIU said in a statement

The 29-year-old had informed the AIU that she missed the test because she had been at Kapsabet County Referral Hospital, where her sister had been admitted after being involved in a serious car accident.

In June, Jepkosgei’s representative sent the AIU a copy of a discharge summary document from the hospital purporting to relate her sister, which stated she been admitted on March 18 and “remained there for some days”.

The AIU then asked Kenya’s anti-doping agency (ADAK) to verify Jepkosgei’s claim, but ADAK reported there were no police records of the car accident and that the hospital had no record of her sister being admitted. The Medical superintendent of Kapsabet County.

posted Thursday March 4th
by Reuters