Kenyan long-distance runner Patrick Siele has been banned for three-and-a-half years for trying to evade a drugs test. 

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) say the 23-year old leapt a perimeter fence to avoid the out-of-competition test in December of 2019.

Siele's ban brings the total number of Kenyan athletes serving suspensions to 66.

On December 18 of last year, two doping control officers were authorised to collect a blood sample at a training camp in Kapsabet, Kenya.

Siele was notified by one of the officers that he would be required to give a sample. However, the AIU say when he was asked to fill out the mandatory paperwork he bolted from the compound.

An AIU report says when the second doping control officer saw Siele was attempting to leave, "he followed the athlete out of the building and it was clear to the DCO that he was running away from testing.

"An independent witness also confirmed that he had seen the athlete hurdling over a fence to escape from the compound."

Siele's only attempt at a marathon saw him finish sixth in Shanghai in November 2019, a month before the test was due to take place.

In 2018, he won half marathons in Agadir and Bucharest.

Former marathon world record holder Wilson Kipsang is among those 66 Kenyan athletes currently serving suspensions. He was banned for four years after being found guilty of whereabouts failures, and of tampering with a doping control.

In 2019 alone, fifteen Kenyan athletes were banned for doping offences.

Siele was given a four-year ban for trying to evade the doping control, but had six-months chalked off having admitted to running away.

The AIU add that "his relative lack of anti-doping education which may have contributed to his error of judgment on the day".

Siele will be eligible to compete again on September 15 2023.