Seven Kenyans, including two-time World Cross Country champion Emily Chebet, were suspended on Friday for taking performance-enhancing drugs. Sports Illustrated's Chris Chavez had the news first:

Two-time World XC champion Emily Chebet has been issued a four-year ban by Athletics Kenya. Francisca Koki and Joyce Zakari also suspended.

— Chris Chavez (@ChrisChavezSI) November 27, 2015

Chavez reported that Chebet was suspended for four years for taking the masking agent/diuretic Furosemide. Sprinters Francisca Koki and Joyce Zakari--whose positive tests at the World Championships were previously reported this summer--will serve the same ban for the same violation.

Chebet's agency wrote in an emailed press release that her former manger Zane Branson learned of the news in July, just three weeks before he died of a heart attack. Her management added that they "met Emily after Kenyan National Trials for 2015 World Championships in Athletics and we have discussed this heartbreaking development and Emily communicated shock and confusion, with sabotage or medical negligence being mentioned as potential explanations, especially as Emily was on medication for toothache and strong headaches at the time of said out-of-competition test."

The drug in question, Furosemide, is a diuretic prescribed for--per Wikipedia--heart, liver, or kidney disease. Its ability to mask other performance-enhacing drugs in tests is why it's a banned substance.

Four obscure distance runners were also banned. Agnes Jepkosgei was suspended for four years, while Judy Jesire, Lilian Moraa, and Bernard Mwendia were suspended for two. Jepkosgei, Jesire, and Mwednia were popped for anabolic steroids, while Moraa tested positive for EPO. If you're looking for a positive in this story, it's that the doping here is extremely unsophisticated--anabolics are largely thought to be out of fashion as a PED, while testing positive for EPO more or less requires the athlete to have taken the drug immediately before the test.

Chebet won World Cross Country Championships in 2010 and 2013, beating out Kenyan Linet Masai by one second in 2010 and Ethiopia's Hiwot Ayalew by three seconds in 2013. We believe that Chebet is the first Kenyan world champion to be suspended for PEDs.

Mwendia was named as a doper in the famous ARD documentary on doping a year ago.

Earlier this week, Kenyan athletes protested for and won the ouster of the top two leaders of Athletics Kenya. One of the athletes' top complaints was that AK president Isaiah Kiplagat was indifferent to doping.

Meanwhile, the top story on the IAAF site insists that they "cannot sit idly by while public confidence in its willingness to protect the integrity of its sports is undermined by allegations that are based on bad scientific and legal argument."