Kenyan-born world champion runner to have doping hearing 5 weeks before Paris Olympics

Former steeplechase world champion Norah Jeruto faces a doping case hearing in June, five weeks before the Paris Olympics.

On Wednesday in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said it would hear an appeal by World Athletics on June 17 against a ruling last year that cleared the 2022 world gold medallist of suspected blood doping.

Jeruto had argued ulcers and a bout of COVID-19 could explain her blood test results in 2020 and 2021 that were later judged to be irregular. She did not test positive for a banned substance.

The Kenya-born Jeruto competed for Kazakhstan when she won gold in the 3,000-metre steeplechase at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Ore., but could not defend her title last year as she was suspended during an investigation.

The Athletics Integrity Unit implicated the 28-year-old Jeruto in banned blood transfusions and taking the endurance-boosting hormone EPO.

An independent tribunal judging the case said a COVID-19 infection in late 2020 raised "sufficient doubt on this part of the case that it would be unfair to convict [Jeruto]."

An expert witness said internal bleeding from Jeruto's ulcers could explain why some of her samples indicated she had lost blood, and there was no evidence she received any transfusions.

Jeruto became an African champion while representing Kenya and won on the top-tier Diamond League circuit in 2021. She missed the Tokyo Olympics that year while her change of allegiance to Kazakhstan was processed.

An urgent CAS verdict is likely before the women's steeplechase is contested at the Paris Olympics Aug. 6-8 at Stade de France.