COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Jonah Koech, last year's U.S. 1,500-meter champion, was stripped of his title and received a three-year ban for blood doping, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced Monday.
The Kenyan-born 29-year-old's ban came after abnormal results on what is known as his athlete biological passport -- a baseline test performed on athletes when they enter the drug-testing pool against which later results are compared.
USADA said passport tests that produce "blood biomarkers" and have been used since 2009 are effective in detecting blood-doping methods such as the use of transfusions and blood-boosting drugs such as erythropoietin.
Koech, who came to the U.S. for college and became a citizen while running for the U.S. Army's world-class athlete program, ran a personal-best 3 minutes, 30.17 seconds at last year's nationals, then went to worlds and finished 13th.
USADA said that the abnormal samples were collected during nationals and that his ban will run through July 2029, which would make him ineligible for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.