Kenya’s Edna Kiplagat upgraded to 2021 Boston Marathon champion

Edna Kiplagat of Kenya has officially become a two-time Boston Marathon champion. The BAA elevated Kiplagat to 2021 Boston Marathon winner on Tuesday after the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) handed down a six-year suspension to former 2021 champion Diana Kipyokei. Kipyokei tested positive for triamcinolone acetonide (a corticosteroid)–a banned anti-inflammatory substance–post-race in Boston.

Kipyokei was also suspended for providing misleading information in her attempts to explain her use of the substance, including “fake documentation, which she alleged came from a hospital,” according to the AIU. Kipyokei’s provisional suspension was announced Oct.14, but is retroactive to June 27, and her six-year ban has been backdated to June also.

Kiplagat is now a two-time Boston Marathon champion, after winning the race in 2017. (She ran to second place in 2019, behind Ethiopia’s Worknesh Degefa.) Kiplagat, 43, is widely regarded as one of the all-time greats in distance running.

Dubbed the “Queen of Persistence,” Kiplagat has competed at both the Olympic and world championship marathons, taking gold twice at the world champs in 2011 and 2013, and silver in 2017. Kiplagat has run all six of the Abbott World Marathon Majors.

The Colorado-based athlete won the Abbott World Marathon Series VIII (2013–14) and was named the Series V (2010–2011) champion following the disqualification of Russian athlete Liliya Shobukhova. 

Kiplagat won both the London Marathon (2014) and New York Marathon (2010) with many second-place finishes. In 2021 she won the 7-mile (11.3 km) Falmouth Road Race, running away from the field in the second half of the race to break the tape in 36 minutes, 52 seconds.