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The National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) gathered last week to target and roadmap plans for success at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
The symposium organized by NOCK in Machakos, Kenya, brought together federations to strengthen and improve results in LA. Meaning more medals. The goal is 10 gold medals. Team Kenya won a total of 11 medals in Paris, four gold, two silver and five bronze.
During the three-day meeting, NOCK President Shedrack Maluki delivered his message to federation leaders: “Resolving disputes within the federations will boost Kenyan sport.”
Maluki believes that teamwork is essential and that the disagreements and conflicting approaches seen in the past must be set aside to make way for a more promising future.
“It is crucial for federations to unite, define their vision, goals, and missions for the next four years, and prepare for the Los Angeles Olympics,” he added.
Several federation presidents supported this view.
Maluki was whistling in the dark
The aphorism “whistling in the dark” is about attempting to be brave in a frightening situation. To maintain courage, even when there is no real reason for confidence. It is a way to ward off fear or bad luck.
Kenya is in the dark, and its anti-doping agency fears the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
While pressure was put on federation leaders and Team Kenya to find motivation, make plans and put aside grievances, there was no apparent plan to allocate resources to stopping the scourge that is plaguing the small East African nation.
To motivate athletes, NOCK appointed marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge as the male athlete representative. With Kipchoge’s experience as a double Olympic champion, the organization feels that it now holds a significant advantage when it comes to understanding what athletes need and the priorities must be met.
The three-day event focused on good governance, strategic planning, gender inclusivity and being prepared.
Doping has plagued Kenya
Since the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, somewhere between 400 and 500 athletes have been implicated or sanctioned for doping-related offences.
Kipchoge asked for equal treatment across sports and said that he is there to represent the various athletes’ concerns. Olympic and World Championships 800m gold medallist Emmanuel Wanyonyi spoke about discipline. He emphasized the importance of discipline if they wish to succeed. “My message to my fellow athletes is this: I want them to be committed. Work hard and stay focused in the run-up to the Olympics and World Championships.”
While Wanyonyi put pressure on athletes to perform, Kipchoge spoke of fairness. Meanwhile, Maluki spoke of strategic planning and collaboration, but no apparent discussion about anti-doping was brought up.
Anti-doping will need to be addressed.
The Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) was recently added to the WADA watchlist.
The decision marks a new wrinkle in the relationship between the two governing bodies. ADAK was already under the watchful eye of WADA. Now, ADAK is on probation, following a continued path of doping. The nation narrowly slipped past an all-out ban on Oct. 1.
ADAK has not addressed certain critical requirements arising from a review. This led the executive committee to consider it non-compliant during its meeting last September. However, in the weeks that followed, ADAK demonstrated signs of progress. ADAK drew up a corrective action plan outlining how it intends to remedy the deficiencies detected in early 2025. That progress prompted the global body’s leadership to refer the case back to the Compliance Review Committee. It went back for a fresh assessment.
Athletes continue to get caught doping.
The Athletics Integrity Unit announced another sanction yesterday. Lydia Cheruiyot was banned for two years for doping. She did not even bother to contest the positive test and waived her right to appeal.
On October 28, it was published that Esther Gitahi, Esther Gitahi, who earned a Master’s in Public Health at the University of Alabama and competed for the Roll Tide team, claimed that she did not know what EPO is, but took it.
She claimed that she was diagnosed with thalassemia. She also said that she was not diagnosed with thalassemia, but was simply told that she had it without undergoing any blood tests. Gitahi claimed that because she did not have medical insurance in the US, she went back to Kenya for treatment for symptoms of lethargy, fatigue and joint pain. It was in Kenya where she was apparently told that she had thalassemia.
So, fresh from her Master’s in Public Health, she took the EPO anyway. She didn’t even try to be creative and strategic.
High-profile doping cases
Some of those athletes include world record holders like Ruth Chepngetich, who won the Chicago Marathon in October 2024 in a time of 2:09:56.
In June 2020, Wilson Kipsang was issued a four-year ban backdated to January 2020 due to anti-doping rule violations. He had four “whereabouts failures” between April 2018 and May 2019, and was found to have tampered with the investigation by providing false evidence.
Kipsang won the Tokyo, Berlin, New York, and London (twice) marathons. His personal best is 2:03:13.
In 2014, Rita Jeptoo tested positive for EPO. She won the Chicago, Boston and Milan marathons. Before Super Shoes, she ran 2:19:57.
Jemima Sumgong‘s official profile on World Athletics lists her as an Olympic marathon champion. She had a best of 2:20:48. However, her career ended early when she was given a two-year ban for a doping violation, later increased to four years, following a positive test for EPO in 2017.
Asbel Kiprop was suspended for doping. In May 2018, it was announced by Athletics Kenya that one of, if not the greatest, all-time middle-distance runners had tested positive for EPO.
The 28-year-old is a living legend. He owns three gold medals from the World Championships and an Olympic gold.
His personal bests are 800-metre 1:43.18, 1500-metre 3:26.69, 1609-metres (mile) 3:48.50 and 3,000-metres 7:42.32.
His agent, Frederico Rosa, is also Chepngetich, Jeptoo and Sumgong’s agent.
Kenya is not out of the dark yet and will need to be collaborative, strategic and committed to anti-doping, or the nation could end up with zero gold, zero silver and zero bronze in LA.
