IAAF wants Jeptoo ban doubled

A day after the Boston Marathon, the Court of Arbitration for Sport noted there have been two appeals filed in the case for Rita Jeptoo, who’s a three-time champion at the icon race.

The sport’s governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, has requested the CAS double Jeptoo’s ban from two to four years.

The IAAF asked the ban be doubled “due to aggravating circumstances which it argues warrant an extended period of ineligibility.”

The 34-year-old Kenyan was the top female marathon runner in the world when she tested positive for EPO in October of 2014. She had just finished winning back-to-back Boston and Chicago marathon titles. The failed test triggered one of the largest doping scandals the country has seen.

Jeptoo, who was in Boston in 2006, 2013 and last year, has asked the CAS to lift her two-year ban, backdated to October 2014, until the appeals are finished, noting she wants to resume training and compete in IAAF competitions, likely with the hopes of competing in August’s world championships. She argues she was prescribed banned substances by a local hospital.

Asked on Sunday during a post-marathon press conference, the top women who raced Boston – a Kenyan, two Ethiopians and an American – chuckled and told reporters they did not feel there was a void in the race with Jeptoo not running.