Top athletes tell Kenyans to maintain faith despite doping claims

Kenya’s top runners have urged athletics fans and sports enthusiasts to keep faith in them despite allegations of doping in the country.

Wilson Kipsang, former marathon world-record holder, said the media allegations had cast aspersions on Kenya’s entire running community rather than singling out the small minority who might have cheated.

“I want to tell the whole world that for the top (Kenyan) athletes who have been running, tests have been carried out and they have been found clean,” said Kipsang.

The two-time London and Frankfurt Marathon winner and 2012 London Olympics Bronze winner said Kenya needed to do much more to tackle doping though pointing out that the current allegations came from the media rather than World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Emmanuel Kimutai, 2011 London Marathon winner said generalisation taints the image of other Kenyan athletes who are clean.

“Generalisation will only damage the image of the Kenyan athletes who are clean in sports.”

Eliud Kipchoge, winner of the 2015 London Marathon, reiterated Kimutai’s point and backed his training partners to have built their success on hard work rather than performance-enhancing drugs.

“Those athletes whom I know and those who are near me, my thinking is that they are doing a great job. They are clean,” said Kipchoge.

Documentary on doping

The documentary aired by ARD/WDR on Saturday alleged that several Kenyan atheletes, most of whom are little-known, have failed drugs tests in the last two years with only Rita Jeptoo, winner of the Boston and Chicago marathons, being categorised as top level runner.

Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper and German broadcaster ARD/WDR said they were given access to the results of more than 12,000 blood tests showing more than 800 athletes had given blood samples that were “highly suggestive” of doping or “abnormal”. Of those 800-plus, reports suggest 77 were Kenyan athletes.

According to the Sunday Times, 18 of Kenya’s Olympic and world-championships medals between 2001 and 2012 were won by athletes with suspicious blood-test results.

The documentary, in which a hidden camera purportedly showed Kenyan athletes being injected with performance-enhancing drugs, also alleged corruption among Kenyan officials who it said wanted to cover up the doping.

Athletics Kenya dismissed the latest allegations as a smear campaign.