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…