NAIROBI, Kenya – The World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA’s) Intelligence and Investigations (I&I) Department has found no evidence of institutionalised doping in Kenya, though some believe the country still has a serious problem.
WADA delivered the report from its Kenya Project taskforce in Nairobi in collaboration with the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) and the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU). The two-day meeting was the latest initiative being implemented by WADA’s I&I Department following the launch in December 2016 of a full-scale investigation, known as the Kenya Project, into widespread doping in the East African nation, as revealed by whistleblowers and media reports.
The summary project report, which has now been published on the WADA website, made a number of key conclusions:
- The doping practices of Kenyan athletes are unsophisticated, opportunistic, and uncoordinated and there is no evidence of an institutionalised system.
- Based on the substances detected, Kenyan athletes most commonly use nandrolone and EPO.
- Athletes in Kenya are insufficiently educated on doping and/or wilfully blind as to the consequences of doping.
- The role of local medical practitioners and quasi-medical personnel (e.g. chemists) is highly relevant to the accessibility of prohibited substances to athletes and their entourages.
- Some local medical practitioners and quasi-medical personnel are also unaware and/or wilfully blind to their role in facilitating the access of athletes and their entourage to prohibited substances.
- The benefits of the “substantial assistance” provisions of the World Anti-Doping Code (Code) are vastly underutilised by Kenyan athletes who are caught for doping.
WADA Director of Intelligence and Investigations Gunter Younger said: “We take the doping practices in Kenya very seriously and have been working hard to identify their extent and nature in Kenyan athletics as well as trying to work out the best possible response.
“A meeting such as this, which includes all parties involved in that response, is a very important next step. We believe that a strong, unified, multi-stakeholder approach is key to advancing clean sport in Kenya."
The two-day "Kenya Project Taskforce" meeting is the latest initiative being implemented by WADA’s I&I Department following the launch in December 2016 of a full-scale investigation, known as the "Kenya Project", into widespread doping in the East African nation. pic.twitter.com/7wIgN2TDc3
— WADA (@wada_ama) September 27, 2018
Doping in the country is different from other doping structures discovered elsewhere in the world and, as such, it requires a different approach. What we have determined is that doping in Kenya is not sophisticated or organized and does not appear to be institutionalised.
Head of the AIU Brett Clothier said: "We thank WADA’s I&I team for launching this project and bringing it forward to this important milestone. Kenya is a great and justly proud athletics nation, but it now has a serious doping problem."