For the third straight year, India, Kenya and Russia are the federations that top the Athletics Integrity Unit’s list of ineligible persons who have violated rules like committing drug offenses, whereabouts violations and tampering.
In its most current list of ineligible athletes and coaches that was updated on July 1, the AIU published a 40-page document that shows nearly 740 people who have committed infractions.
India racked up 22 percent of the group with 161, Kenya was at 20 percent with 148 and Russia was third overall at 66 for 9 percent, meaning the three nations account for 51 percent of those sanctioned.
The list represents just half of 2026 totals and will likely grow by the end of the year.
India, Kenya and Russia claimed the top spots on the list last year and were also the lead nations of ineligible persons in 2024.
In 2025, Kenya had 140 suspended athletes, with India at 137 and Russia in third at 75, with the AIU addressing specific shortfalls in anti-doping policies of each of their federations in the past two years.
The AIU reclassified India as an “extremely high” doping risk in April and placed is Athletics Federation of India in a critical position of nations that incur a frequent amount of infraction that simply outpace efforts for timely reform.
“The doping situation in India has been high-risk for a long time and, unfortunately, the quality of the domestic anti-doping program is simply not proportionate to the doping risk,” AIU chair David Howman said. “While the AFI has advocated for anti-doping reforms within India, not enough has changed. The AIU will now work with the AFI to achieve reforms to safeguard the integrity of the sport of athletics, as we have done with other ‘Category A’ Member Federations.”
India was previously classified as a Category B federation but its Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADVRs) were constantly monitored by the AIU. But by April, India joined Belarus, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia and Ukraine as Category A nations and its baseline method of drug testing has undergone an adjusted criteria of evaluation.
Kenya has faced similar scrutiny and last October the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya was placed on a World Anti-Doping Agency watchlist after being under threat of non-compliance when the federation failed to make improvements outlined in a 2024 audit.
WADA gave Kenya six-month timeline to show progress in overhauling its anti-doping policies that met the minimum standards that would required of any other nation, regardless of whether they were under observation. Kenya faced a number of sanctions, including funding cutsm exclusion from participation in administrative-level programs while its own officials could have been banned from holding positions on any WADA committees.
Other nations on the AIU’s current ineligible list have significantly lower numbers of violations but rank in positions of past years, with China (35), Ethiopia (24), Italy (20), South Africa (19), Turkey (19), Ukraine (19) and the United States (17) rounding out the top ten.
