IAAF will not ban Kenya from Olympics

World athletics body, the IAAF says it will not ban Kenya from the Rio 2016 Olympics but the country remains on doping ‘monitoring list’ despite the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) declaring the country non-compliant, Associated Press reports.

The IAAF said in a statement to The Associated Press that Kenya remains on a “monitoring list” of countries with doping problems until the end of the year. But, despite Thursday’s decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency to declare Kenya’s drug-testing agency non-compliant, the nation’s athletes can still compete through to the end of 2016.

“During the monitoring process … Kenyan athletes remain eligible to compete nationally and internationally,” the IAAF said.

That means Kenyans will be able to take part in track and field at the Rio Games in August, unless the International Olympic Committee steps in. That is considered unlikely.

The IAAF did say that WADA’s decision to suspend Kenya’s anti-doping program “is a further reflection of the IAAF’s concerns about the level of commitment to anti-doping at the national level in Kenya.”

It also said Kenya’s elite athletes were now the most tested of any country by the IAAF. Kenya could face more serious sanctions from the track body at the end of the year if its drug-testing program is still a mess.

Kenya’s anti-doping program needed to be “significantly strengthened by the end of the current year,” the IAAF said.

Report by Associated Press