Wilson Kipsang: Marathon winner handed four-year ban for anti-doping rule violations

Former marathon world record holder Wilson Kipsang has been banned for four years for anti-doping rule violations.

World Athletics said between April 2018 and May 2019 the 38-year-old Kenyan, twice a London Marathon winner, had missed four "whereabouts appointments".

Three such failures within 12 months leads to an automatic ban.

Kipsang said he missed a test in May 2019 because of a traffic accident and provided a photo of the crash, but that was found to be from August 2019.

The World Athletics Disciplinary Tribunal said it had banned the Kenyan with effect from 10 January this year for "whereabouts failures and tampering by providing false evidence and witness testimony".

The Athletics Integrity Unit statement said "evidence demonstrates overwhelmingly that the athlete was engaged in tampering or attempted tampering in breach of the IAAF rules".

Kipsang, a bronze medallist at the 2012 London Olympics, had been provisionally suspended in January for whereabouts failures and tampering by providing false evidence.

He also won the Berlin, New York and Tokyo marathons and is the sixth fastest marathon runner in history, with a personal best of two hours, three minutes and 13 seconds.

The Kenyan's competitive results from 12 April 2019 to 10 January 2020 were expunged, but he has the right to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

In recent years, Kenya's 2008 Olympic 1500m champion Asbel Kiprop, former Boston and Chicago Marathon winner Rita Jeptoo and 2016 Olympic marathon champion Jemima Sumgong have all been sanctioned.

This article was originally published by BBC Sport.