He distinguished himself on August 13 by winning the prestigious Swiss Sierre-Zinal trail (31 km, 2,200 m of elevation gain), and relegating the legend Kilian Jornet to 5th place. Mark Kangogo has been provisionally suspended for doping, the Athletics Integrity Unit announced on Tuesday (IAU). The 33-year-old Kenyan tested positive for norandrosterone (an anabolic steroid) and triamcinolone acetonide (a glucocorticoid), without the IAU specifying the date of the test.
Kangogo is the 21st athlete from his country suspended in 2022 following suspicions or proven cases of doping. After the suspension in July of Lilian Kasait Rengeruk, finalist in the 5,000m at the Tokyo Olympics, the Kenyan athletics federation announced that it had strengthened its resources in order to “dismantle the cartels and accelerate the war on doping”. On Monday, yet another Kenyan athlete was suspended – for three years – by the IAU for abnormally high testosterone levels.
Kenya under close surveillance
Kenya, which is one of the main cross-country nations, has been placed in category A on the watch list of world athletics and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) since 2016.
For his part, Jornet recovered well from his relative failure during Sierre-Zinal. The Spaniard immediately won the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB).