KENYA’S DENTED IMAGE: Doping, Nike and AK scandals dim otherwise bright year

This year’s athletics season will go down in history as one of the dirtiest since 1954 when Nyandika Maiyoro finished fourth in the three-mile event at the Commonwealth Games in Vancouver –and thus pioneered Kenya’s athletic supremacy.

It has been a difficult moment for athletics fraternity as a myriad of problems keep sweeping across Kenya’s number one sport, if you think of winning medals.

But American poet Arthur Guiterman captured Athletics Kenya’s situation thus:

“Admitting errors clears the score and proves you wiser than before.”

Doping claims, AK wrangles and the Nike scandal created fault lines and even threatened to throw to the dogs the goose that lays Kenya’s golden egg.

It all started in January when AK Medical Commission served three-time Boston Marathon winner Rita Jeptoo with a provisional suspension for testing positive to EPO in an out-of-competition and thereafter, banned her for two years.

Moments later, World Anti-Doping Agency (wada) threatened Kenya with sanctions for failing to put in place structures to help curb doping.

One among them was to bar Kenya from competing at the Olympic Games that runs in Rio, Brazil from August 5-21 next year.

The Government then constituted Anti-Doping Association of Kenya (Adak), which joined forces with the police, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board (KMPDB), Ministry of Sports, Pharmacy and Poisons Board and regional anti-doping organization. 

The team raided clinics and chemists in Nairobi and Kapsabet to flush out unprofessional doctors and top dogs of the trade.

About 43 athletes have failed doping tests in the past three years, with the highest number including high profile athletes, testing positive for banned substances this year.

Early this month, AK suspended some athletes that included two-time world cross country champion Emily Chebet, which further threw Kenya into the growing list of world’s dirtiest nations as far as doping is concerned.

Africa 800m bronze medallist Agatha Jeruto was slapped with a doping ban this year even as allegations emerged that some AK chiefs pocketed kickbacks from drug cheats to evade sanctions.

In 2015, Kenya and Russia shot to the top of doping league table though, North Rift, which stands out as the brightest star in the athletics universe, is now billed as the haven for doping.

AK were also dragged in a controversial scandal with American kit sponsor Nike, which resulted in the suspension of former AK President Isaiah Kiplagat, vice president David Okeyo and former treasurer Joseph Kinyua for 180 days by IAAF –worsening the already frosty relationships with AK executive and regional chairmen.

Traditionally, international media used to camp in Iten, Eldoret and Kapsabet to do profiles of Kenyan superstars, but 2015 has been different.

They all scrambled for investigative stories on doping and the Nike scandal.

Things did not go as planned for the World cross country junior teams (men and women) after they failed to win team and individual titles in Guiyang, China.