Expect more cases of drug cheats, ADAK warns

The number of athletes sanctioned for violation of anti-doping rules is expected to rise once the laid strategy to end the menace comes into place.

The government through the Anti-doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) is teaming up with other agencies to ensure all the athletes competing internationally and locally are tested.

Kenya narrowly escaped being sanctioned by World Athletics in December last year after the government pledged to increase its funding of USD5 million (Sh 690,594,400) a year to fight doping.

Since 2016 to date, 192 Kenyan athletes have been sanctioned with 169 cases prosecuted and concluded.

So far 7,598 athletes have been tested since 2016 with samples being urine, blood, ABP blood passport and blood serum.

In terms of education, ADAK has had 529 programmes with 119,400 targeted people having been reached so far.

Speaking in Mombasa during the anti-doping workshop organised for sports journalists through their association, Dr Martin Yauma - head of Education and Research at ADAK - said that all the arms of government have come together and more athletes will now be tested.

“Don’t be alarmed when the number rises because all the arms of government are now coming up together to fight the menace. We are all advocating for clean sport in our country,” said Yauma.

This year alone, according to the statistics shared by ADAK, 25 athletes had been sanctioned by June and more are likely to feature in the coming days.

ADAK chief executive Sarah Shibutse said that they want to collaborate more with the media  to ensure they reach out to the athletes and their support personnel.

“We are expected to test athletes at least three times before the World Championships and for the Olympic Games, the International Committee (IOC) will always give us the requirements," Shibutse said.

“As a country, we want team Kenya to always run clean and all the other sports to be clean. We are going to do our best to create awareness and make sure the message reaches every athlete and the media is critical in passing the message,” said Shibutse.

National Olympics Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) Secretary General Francis Mutuku said that the journey to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games has started and clean sports must be on the lead in all disciplines expected to compete.

“We have taken the lead on clean sports led by our President Paul Tergat and given that we have more disciplines which will be competing in Paris, we have to ensure they compete fairly and clean," Mutuku said.

"We have to collaborate with ADAK, AIU and the government to make sure we have the right people who will travel for the games.”

Nation Media Group’s Lead Editor, Sports and Integration Projects, Elias Makori said journalists need to do more research on the anti-doping violations so that they can report from an informed point.

“This is a fight that we need as journalists to be on the forefront to make sure that the sport we are reporting on is fair and clean across the country. We need to do more research and empower ourselves with information so that we can report facts which will help eradicate the doping menace,” said Makori.

SJAK President James Waindi said that the workshop came at the right time.

“We have more than 80 journalists in the workshop and we are glad because we are all in the journey of fighting the doping menace and it is good for them to know what they are reporting as they help the relevant authorities in making sure the sport is clean,” said Waindi.