The estranged husband of Rita Jeptoo, the reigning Boston and Chicago Marathon champion who tested positive for the blood booster EPO on September 25, has told Agence France Presse he believes Jeptoo began doping in 2011.



Furthermore, an April 2013 letter from a lawyer for the husband, Noah Busienei, to Jeptoo alleges that Busienei knew of Jeptoo’s use of an “unrecommended or banned drug hormone which increases the red blood counts.” The letter said that, unless Jeptoo made a financial settlement with Busienei, "he is willing to take the necessary step by revealing/disclosing/unleashing the doping dossier" to Athletics Kenya and the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The lawyer, Rioba Omboto, has confirmed the authenticity of the letter to Agence France Presse. It pre-dates Jeptoo’s 2013 and 2014 victories in Boston and Chicago.

Those wins gave Jeptoo, 33, enough points to secure the $500,000 winner’s check for the 2013/2014 World Marathon Majors series. But when the “A” urine sample from her out-of-competition drug test in Eldoret, Kenya turned up a positive EPO result, the WMM presentation ceremony scheduled for New York on November 2, and the payment, were postponed indefinitely.

A test of Jeptoo’s “B” sample, not yet scheduled, will determine her future competitive eligibility. To date, Jeptoo is the most prominent Kenyan runner implicated in the use of banned performance-enhancing drug use.

"I feel very bad for what has happened to Rita but I saw it coming," said Busienei, who stated that he believes Jeptoo began doping in September 2011 on the advice of a foreign agent who promised to make the couple “very rich.”

Jeptoo won her debut marathon in Stockholm in 2004 and her first Boston title in 2006. More high finishes in major marathons followed, including fourth in Boston in 2007 and third in 2008, and fourth in New York City in 2006 and 2008. She subsequently took more than two years off from competition for maternity leave. Upon her return in 2011, Jeptoo raced herself back into peak fitness, finishing as a close runner-up in Chicago in 2012 before beginning her successful streak in Boston and Chicago.

Wilson Kipsang, the winner of the 2014 London and New York City Marathons and the male winner of the World Marathon Majors series, told the Daily Nation after hearing of Jeptoo’s positive “A” sample that the “credibility of some elite athletes who post good times while competing clean comes to doubt when such things happen.”

Kipsang is president of the newly formed Professional Athletes Association of Kenya. Of allegations of further drug use among elite Kenyan runners, he expressed hope that his government will “investigate deeply and if there is a cartel involved, let it be broken for the sake of athletes.” The “cartel” comment invokes the national federation Athletics Kenya’s past efforts to blame drug problems on foreign coaches, agents, and doctors.

Kipsang also said PAAK will educate Kenyan runners about doping.

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