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During the early 2000s, there were scientific studies suggesting that East African athletes carried no genetic advantage over people from outside the country. Other than an apparently higher-sitting calf muscle, there wasn’t anything pointing to more so-called “talent.” It was concluded that Kenyans benefit from being a product of their environment.
They are born and raised at altitude, therefore they create more red blood cells. They walk or run great distances every day to school and during lunch breaks. Also for work and general transportation. The Kenyans live closer to the earth, eating healthier and living simpler lives, which allows better recovery after hard runs.
Some Kenyan athletes accused Westerners of being lazy. Kenyans want to win more than just about anyone else.
One international coach, Renato Canova, who had dozens of top-rung East African athletes in his stable, declared that EPO does not work on them. The implication was, therefore, they don’t dope. When former Athletics Kenya president Isiah Kiplagat declared war on doping, he warned unregistered foreign coaches to leave within one week. Canova left the area, headed to China and has been there since.
In desperation, Kiplagat blamed Westerners for his athlete’s doping. Now, it seems proven that Canova and Kiplagat were both wrong and that doping in Kenya is out of control. It is since the World Anti-Doping Agency was able to create a coordinated out-of-competition anti-doping program in the country, that the unearthly talent has been discovered to be, mostly doping. The athletes and scientists were right, there is no apparent natural advantage. There is chaos, and desperation to make the invaluable money available at marathons and other road races and Kenyans will do anything to make some of it including cheating, repeatedly.
Recent doping-related suspensions
On June 18, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced the suspension of three Kenyan runners. On June 21, the AIU announced the suspension of two more Kenyans and a Bolivian athlete. This was just two weeks after the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) published a press release about suspending 33 athletes, 26 of them runners. On June 5th, Athletics Illustrated reported that Kenyan Rhonex Kipruto, the world 10,000 metre championships bronze medallist was suspended for Athletics Biological Passport anomalies. The 24-year-old received a six-year suspension.
On May 17, Rodgers Kwemoi Chumo of Kenya was suspended for six years. The Commonwealth Games 10,000m gold medallist was blood doping.
On May 20th, Kenyan marathon runner, Kemei Elias Kiprono, was provisionally suspended by the AIU, for testing positive for the banned performance-enhancing drug, Trimetazidine.
Nine days later, 35-year-old marathon runner Josephine Chepkoech was banned for seven years for her second offence. She was initially suspended from March 2015 for two years for the presence of norandrosterone, a potent anabolic steroid. At the 2024 Seville Marathon, she tested positive again, this time for testosterone.
The Nairobi high court ordered the national athletics body, Athletics Kenya (AK), to dissolve and have the board vacate the office. The board has not held elections for eight years. It was a tenure “not in accordance with the society’s act,” according to Judge Lawrence Mugambi.
Ten former international athletes led by two-time Boston Marathon winner Moses Tanui took over in 2016 from Isiah Kiplagat. At the time, they asked AK to amend its constitution to allow sportspeople to serve on the body. Mugambi ended the very long legal battle with the judgement.
Solution
It would be less complicated but drastic to suspend Athletics Kenya for non-compliance. No doubt riots would ensue. Non-compliance would have to be proven. AK is likely in compliance, just its athletes are out of control.
More complicated would be to begin to suspend athletes for life should their A and B samples test positive for the same performance-enhancing drugs. This would be done on the first out-of-competition or in-competition test. To be suspended, and never be seen again. Remove their entire history from the World Athletics’ website and the official record books. A task force could go after prize money, but that would be expensive and unsuccessful, as it already is proven to be.
Urging nations to add doping to the civil criminal code, making the offence punishable by law, would be a good deterrent. Kenya and the US already have created civil laws. In the US it is called the Rodchenkov Act. It is illegal to use steroids without a valid prescription or to distribute them. Steroids, for example, are Schedule III substances under the Controlled Substances Act.
The athlete is the tip of the iceberg. Someone or an organization manufactures or is supplied drugs. Someone else distributes them. Somehow PEDs get into the gray and black market and then the iceberg (below the surface) grows. Agents, coaches, athletes, massage therapists, medical practitioners, drug dealers and enablers are in on the act.
The criminal law portion needs to continue to grow to eliminate the supply, distribution and use. The anti-doping authorities need to continue to pursue the dopers as per the list above. World Athletics and all governing bodies, need to remove all athletes who are clearly in contravention of the anti-doping act. They need to be removed from all records as if they never existed. All placements, especially podium finishes, 100 per cent of the time should be automatically re-allocated.
But for now, the low-risk, high-reward scenario of doping going on in Kenya with approximately 90 athletes suspended does not seem to be abating.
In fairness, there is change afoot. The Athlete Biological Passport program is a tool that has caught athletes who dope, by tracking big unnatural changes in their blood profile. Out-of-competition testing in places where it didn’t exist in the past is nabbing many. The Whereabouts program, although appears to be abused by some, is catching some who attempt to game the system. The eight-year statute of limitations on re-testing samples, gives space for improved testing procedures, for example, the dried blood protocol. But none of these are deterrents, but ways to catch the cheaters.
Simply, events should stop inviting Kenyan athletes. If they have no market, they have no reason to dope.
Is it time to suspend Athletics Kenya until they get their act together? Or are the current methods that shame the athletes, and AK enough? As Brett Clothier, head of the AIU said in late 2023, “It is going to get worse before it gets better,” and he appears to be correct.
Expect more of the same, chaos, until critical mass, then competing will require a hurdle large and complicated enough to not be worth the effort.
