Michael Saruni posted his last post on Instagram one day after the 800 meter semifinal at the Tokyo Olympics in early August 2021. “I’ll be back n make history,” wrote the then 26-year-old about a picture that shows him with a critical eye before the race – perhaps already suspecting that it won’t be enough.
In that semi-final, Saruni ran his personal best time of the season in 1:44.55 minutes, but the Kenyan was a quarter of a second short of making it to the final. From the dream of the run of his life – and worse: two days later, his two teammates Emmanuel Kipkurui Korir and Ferguson Cheruiyot Rotich were to win Olympic gold and silver in a tactical race with times of 1:45. So while the two really made running history, Saruni had to admit that he had perhaps missed the biggest opportunity of his career.
His idea of how he could still achieve fame, even if without honor, turned out to be a complete nonsense a year later. In the national qualifying races for the 2022 World Cup, the 1.78 meter tall runner tried to evade the doping test with a supposedly particularly clever idea. What might have worked for simple-minded Europeans at a glance was doomed to failure in the running nation of Kenya.
As the Kenyan Anti-Doping Agency (ADAK) has now announced, Saruni wanted to avoid the doping test through “trickery”. He himself literally “ran away”. Saruni sent a doppelganger to impersonate him and provide a urine sample on his behalf. Saruni was exposed and has now been banned for four years until the end of August 2027. The fact that he claimed during the hearing that he had never been asked for a sample did not change this.
Thus, Michael Saruni has involuntarily gone down in history. He definitely has potential: In January 2018, the middle distance athlete even set a world record – albeit only indoors and in 1:14.79 minutes over the rarely run 600 meter distance. And in April of the same year, the University of Texas student even ran an 800 meter world record – unfortunately only a student world record.
Michael Reinsch Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 12 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 4 Michael Reinsch, Berlin Published/Updated: Recommendations: 1
The problem: With his best time at the time of 1:43.25 minutes, he would be the German record holder, for example, but he is only ranked 25th on Kenya’s all-time best list. And there are not only too many good runners in Kenya – but also too many cheaters: this Tuesday alone, ADAK announced doping bans for 44 Kenyan athletes.
