Athletics Integrity Unit v. Alice Koigi & Mercyline Chelangat

Koigi

Kenyan road runner Alice Koigi, 34, tested positive for methylprednisolone, a glucocorticoid. She admitted the violation and apologised. As a first offence involving a Specified Substance with no finding of intentional use, the standard four-year sanction did not apply; instead the two-year band applied and was not further reduced (the one-year admission credit under Rule 10.8.1 only operates where the asserted sanction is four years or more). Her period of ineligibility runs from 9 December 2025, with results from 26 October 2025 disqualified.

Chelangat

This case is more factually involved than a routine admission and deserves to be reported accurately. Ugandan distance runner Mercyline Chelangat, 28, a 2018 Commonwealth Games 10,000m bronze medallist who has represented Uganda at both the Tokyo and Paris Olympics and three World Championships (Eugene, Budapest, and Tokyo), returned Adverse Analytical Findings in two separate samples: an out-of-competition urine sample collected in Kapchorwa on 13 August 2025, which showed testosterone metabolites, androsterone, and clomiphene (a drug sometimes used to stimulate natural testosterone production, often associated with steroid-cycle recovery); and an in-competition urine sample collected in Tokyo on 14 September 2025, immediately after she finished 49th in the marathon at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in 2:45:36, which showed testosterone metabolites and androsterone again. She held no Therapeutic Use Exemption for either finding.

When the AIU put the findings to her, Chelangat offered two distinct explanations rather than a bare admission. For the first finding, she said she had been injured since 2023 and had been taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and other painkillers almost daily for nearly two years before the Tokyo championships. For the Tokyo-linked finding, she said she had been treated for pneumonia at a clinic in Uganda in August 2025 and received several unspecified injections there. She did accept the second (Tokyo) finding itself, while maintaining she had not intentionally used any prohibited substance.

The AIU tested these explanations rather than simply accepting them: it asked Chelangat to substantiate her account, and she provided a list of supplements, clinical notes, and photographs of partially used products. The AIU's investigation found that none of the medications or supplements she documented contained testosterone or a testosterone precursor — meaning her account, even taken at face value, did not actually explain how the prohibited substances entered her system. She was unable to establish that the violation was unintentional.

Because testosterone is a Non-Specified Substance, the standard sanction was four years; the AIU found the case warranted the maximum aggravated increase, arriving at an asserted six-year sanction. Chelangat signed her admission and acceptance of consequences on New Year's Eve, 31 December 2025, earning a one-year reduction — producing a final five-year period of ineligibility, running from 10 October 2025. All of her results from 13 August 2025 (including the Tokyo marathon placing) were disqualified.

Announced together as the first AIU sanctions against East African athletes in 2026, the two cases sit at opposite ends of the same framework: a Specified Substance case resolved by straightforward admission, against a Non-Specified Substance case where the athlete offered a documented but ultimately unsubstantiated explanation before it was rejected on its own terms.