Standard Digital World

German Journalist: Hajo Seppelt

Claims by one German journalist going by the name Hajo Seppelt that most of Kenya’s athletes are guilty of doping can best be characterized as malicious, baseless, lousy and outrageous. They are the kind of claims that under normal circumstances I would not spend a minute of my worthy time bothering about. But seeing what these claims could do to our young men and women who are investing hours of hard work to protect our heritage, I say no! I must stand up to be counted.

I find it very disturbing that someone can walk into Kenya, spend a few hours or days for whatever its worth and come up with such baseless claims. Looking at the fact that Kenya is a renowned athletic powerhouse across the world, especially in long distance races, vis a vis these lousy claims, I must say, I stand up to demand evidence. This, I must say, cannot go unchallenged. What a coincidence that these claims have surfaced with the Olympics just around the corner? What are these claims hoping to achieve?

One wonders how this journalist did his research. Did he test Kenya’s athletes at any given point in time or did he entirely rely on hearsay? Did/Does he even have the capacity to carry out these tests? Did he care to corroborate his findings? After he found out that most of Kenyan athletes are involved in doping as he claims, did he bother to conduct/seek comment from the subject(s)? How do you dare publish such damning claims without bothering to get a single comment from the subjects? What kind of journalism is this?