Former Tokyo Marathon runner-up Tsehay Gemechu gets 4-year ban for suspected blood doping

Former Tokyo Marathon runner-up Tsehay Gemechu was banned for four years because of suspected blood doping, the Athletics Integrity Unit said Thursday.

The 25-year-old Ethiopian also was disqualified from all her results and prize money earned since March 2020, including second place in the elite-level Tokyo race in March 2023. Her run of just under 2 hours, 17 minutes had ranked No. 24 in the women’s all-time list.

Gemechu also placed fourth over 5,000 meters at the 2019 world championships in Doha, Qatar, and ran in the 10,000 at the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021. She already was disqualified from that Olympics race for a lane violation. She did not finish the marathon at the 2023 worlds in Budapest, Hungary.

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The AIU said Gemechu had suspicious blood values in her athlete biological passport. It can show indicators of doping over longer periods of time without the need for a positive test.

Gemechu gave 50 blood samples over a five-year period with those taken in March 2020 then April and May 2022 “indicative of blood manipulation,” according to an independent doping tribunal’s verdict.

She is banned until November 2027.