Kenyan marathon runner Vincent Kipsegechi Yator, handed four-year doping ban

Another Kenyan athlete has been handed a doping ban after marathon runner Vincent Kipsegechi Yator was suspended for four years following positive tests for a number of banned substances.

Yator, who represented his nation at the Commonwealth Games and African Championships in 2010, was given a four-year-ban, having provisionally been suspended after testing positive in October.

The Athletics Integrity Unit announced the sanction after the 30-year-old was hit with two charges.

The first charge was related to the admitted presence of metabolites of testosterone after a test was taken on July 7 of last year, while the second was related to the alleged use of several banned substances including exogenous testosterone, trimetazidine, prednisone, prednisolone and clomiphene. 

The Kenyan argued that the presence of prednisone and prednisolone came from medication he was taking after he was allegedly in a road accident in 2018.

Yator's positive test came immediately after he broke his marathon personal best at the Gold Coast Marathon in Australia with a time of 2 hours 9min 59sec.

At the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games, Yator finished fourth in the men's 5,000 metres behind team-mate Eliud Kipchoge - future holder of the marathon world record - who came second.

He also finished third at the Honolulu Marathon in Hawaii in December 2018.

Yator will not be eligible to compete again until October 1 2023 and has had all results from April 10 to October 1 in 2019 expunged.

He follows a string of high-profile Kenyans to test positive recently, with the most famous name of them all being Beijing 2008 Olympic 1,500m champion Asbel Kiprop.

posted Wednesday April 8th
by Michael Houston