NN Running Team athlete handed three-year doping ban

Kenyan marathon runner Philemon Kacheran Lokedi, who trains with Eliud Kipchoge and the NN Running Team, has been banned for three years by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) after testing positive for exogenous testosterone from an out-of-competition sample taken on April 27.

Kacheran was selected to represent Kenya in the marathon at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, but he was provisionally suspended on July 8, which left him off the team. 

He faced a four-year ban for his offence under World Athletics’ anti-doping rules, but his ban was reduced to three years due to an “early admission and acceptance of sanction.”

Kacheran holds a personal best of 2:05:19, which he ran to finish third at the 2021 Valencia Marathon in December. 

In 2019, Kacheran served as a pacemaker for Kipchoge’s successful sub-two-hour marathon attempt at the INEOS-1:59 Challenge and was described by Kipchoge’s coach, Patrick Sang, as one of his strongest training partners. He is the second INEOS pacer to be handed a doping ban, after his compatriot, Alex Korio, received a two-year ban for whereabouts failures in 2020.

On Tuesday morning after the news broke, Kacheran was removed from the team list on the NN Running Team website.

Kacheran is the ninth Kenyan athlete to be banned by the AIU since July, with the others including the winner of the 2019 Boston and Chicago Marathons, Lawrence Cherono.

Kenya is one of seven nations deemed by the AIU to have the highest doping risk and threaten the overall integrity of the sport.