NO SYSTEMATIC DOPING IN KENYA: Muthee says Kenya lacks capacity to tackle menace

Rugby-Chairman Mwango Awards winners The Kenya rugby chairman Mwangi Muthee(second left) awarding a trophy to the winning team Les Gaulois from Nairobi in the just concluded Diani's international touch rugby on Monday,014th July,2014. The three day sport event saw a boost in tourism in Kwale County. By Tobias Chanji/Standard

There is no systematic doping by Kenyan athletes and those suggesting that Kenya would be banned from international competition such as the Olympic Games, have an ulterior motive, a sports administrator said yesterday.

Mwangi Muthee, former Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) chairman, said WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) and other organisations with the testing and investigative capacity had the responsibility to catch any doping Kenyan sportspersons.

“Some Kenyan athletes have already been caught by these organisations and the country has responded by acknowledging the bans and condemning use of drugs,” he added.

Muthee, who is also a member of the Sports Kenya Board, said: “The few Kenyan athletes found guilty will remain a pariah in our country just like those sanctioned elsewhere, but we deny that there is a systematic doping by any sporting organisations or groups in Kenya. We do not have the scientific capacity nor the evil plan for that.”

He added: “Systematic doping is a science and practice in the developed world. For proven and well-documented instances, we go way back to the Communist regime of East Germany. Then to more recently, the numerous cases of Lance Armstrong and the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team; American athlete Marion Jones and the Bay Area Laboratory (BALCO) scandal; and earlier, the case of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson and regime of steroid use administered by his coach Charlie Francis.”

“Some quarters within WADA, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the IAAF (International Amateur Athletic Federation) have recently dragged Kenya’s name, alongside that of Russia, who are accused of running a systematic doping ring for their athletes.

The National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) chairman Kipchoge Keino said WADA had expressed to him plans to sanction Kenya because the Kenyan Government was allegedly not doing much to get a recently set-up National Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) fully operational.

“We at Sports Kenya are also eager to have ADAK up and running, especially in educating Kenyans about banned substances in sport as well as conducting investigations about possible use of them and conducting tests. We urge the government to proceed with haste,” he said.

Nevertheless, Muthee said there was no basis of Kenya being singled out for lacking an anti-doping mechanism. “There may be a few individuals that have contributed in the few proven cases of doping in Kenya, but those are “rogue”. When ADAK is operational, they will be in the hunt,” Muthee said.

“Why should we be criminalised for lacking capacity; and while we are striving to achieve that,” Muthee posed.

“Why? Congo, Chad, or any other country in Africa, save for South Africa where a WADA-supported regional body is, have anti-doping agencies. Will they also be banned from the Olympics?” he said.

Muthee said even at the height of doping by athletes, the Ben Johnson’s 1988 saga at the Seoul Olympics being a case in point, “the world at the time could absolutely do little to fight the problem. It would be, after all, a full 12 years before the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) would be formed. What was the reason for the wait? Probably funding and capacity building.”