Patrick Sang is often hailed as the mastermind of the impossible. From crafting Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon to Faith Kipyegon’s middle-distance reign, his coaching exploits are legendary. Especially, his partnership with Kipchoge during the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in 2019 smashed records. But the legacy of the iconic 2019 sub-two-hour run faced another blow this week. One of the event’s famed pacemakers just became the fourth overall athlete from that elite training group to receive a multi-year ban for doping.

This comes after a statement from the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), confirming that the organisation banned Hillary Kipchirchir Chepkwony for four years.

“A Disciplinary Tribunal has banned Hillary Kipchirchir Chepkwony (Kenya) for 4 years, from 8 December 2025, for the Use of a Prohibited Substance/Method (ABP case),” reads the statement from the AIU on X.

The 26-year-old was provisionally suspended in December 2025. That was after anomalies in his Athlete Biological Passport prompted an investigation by the AIU. Since then, the case has been ongoing, and after weeks of deliberation, the committee handed down a four-year ban. According to the report, the committee has banned Chepkwony for 4 years, until December 2029, and disqualified his competitive results from August 2024 onward.

That includes any medals, prizes, titles, and records the Kenyan won during that time. This comes after Chepkwony had seventeen blood samples taken between September 2022 and January 2025. However, his samples numbered 14 and 15 proved that he was doping, and it led to him being provisionally suspended. This was after the AIU concluded that it was “highly likely” that Hillary Chepkwony had been blood doping.

For the unversed, blood doping is the banned practice of boosting the body’s ability to carry oxygen. This allows athletes to improve their endurance and performance, especially in sports like distance running, cycling, and more. While Hillary Chepkwony disputed the findings, asserting they were due to physiological and pathological conditions, the AIU rejected those claims.

Two separate Joint Expert Panels reviewed results, concluding that blood doping or Erythropoietin use was likely. It marks the fourth athlete historically associated with Sang’s elite training group from the INEOS 1:59 Challenge to face a suspension or ban.

Philemon Kacheran, Rodgers Kwemoi, and Marius Kipserem are the other three, and they were all banned for blood doping and other reasons. An Olympic silver medalist and a World Championship steeplechase medalist himself, Sang trained multiple world record holders. But unfortunately, a few bans have become his reckoning.

Kacheran, a prominent training partner of Eliud Kipchoge, was given a three-year ban after testing positive for synthetic testosterone in 2026. Kipserem was banned for three years in 2022 after testing positive for recombinant erythropoietin. Rodgers, a training partner of Kipchoge, was banned for blood doping in 2024. Chepkwony joins the list now as a concerning trend emerges.

Unfortunately, Chepkwony’s case is far from an isolated incident, as it’s part of a pattern that has plagued Kenya for years 

Kenyan athletics suspends over 27 athletes for various reasons

Since the AIU’s formation in 2017, they have sanctioned and suspended over 500 athletes for various doping offenses. Unfortunately for Kenya, over 140 of those names have been from the country, with it struggling to keep up. This led to the African nation being placed on a watchlist in late 2025, after a WADA audit a year earlier.

Yet, following recent changes and adjustments to its policies and operations, WADA reported that Kenya had come off the watchlist. And since then, the number of doping-related sanctions has shot up in the country. Since August 2025, authorities have suspended or banned 27 athletes for various doping-related offences.

A large majority of that figure is because of whereabouts failures, although that isn’t the case for Hillary Chepkwony and Rita Jeptoo. Both athletic stars tested positive for banned substances and were first provisionally suspended before being issued bans. The other athletes include footballer Charles Ouma and Rooney Onyango, as well as basketball stars Christine Mwangale and Christine Akinyi.

Furthermore, the Athletics Integrity Unit provisionally suspended Wiseman Were for whereabouts failure in March 2026. That was after the former 400m national champion missed three doping tests within one year.

With Hillary Chepkwony joining the list of suspended athletes tied to Patrick Sang, the spotlight around one of running’s most successful coaches has intensified. And despite Kenya’s recent anti-doping crackdown, the sheer number of bans continues to cast a long shadow over the country’s golden generation.