On March 22, 2020 Sport Express, a Russian based sports website, ran an interesting opinion piece by Oleg Shamonaev titled ‘Kenya’s doping nightmare. Why is he indifferent to WADA?’. In the article, the writer tries to paint Kenya as the main supplier of doping scandals in athletics. He further states that Kenya is guilty of vast sales of prohibited substances, forgery of documents, bribery of doping officers and the concealment of doping incidence, all of which are completely untrue and unsubstantiated.

Indeed, the growing numbers of Kenyan elite runners being flagged for anti-doping transgressions should sound a warning bell to sports administrators. However, Kenya is not at the Russian level because of various reasons. Unlike Kenya, Russia was found to be a beneficiary of state-sponsored doping that resulted in the stripping of 43 medals from the country’s athletes so far — the largest number ever for any nation. Investigations by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) revealed that the ‘systematic doping’ was allegedly orchestrated by officials posing as anti-doping personnel leading to the banning of Russia from all major sporting events for four years by WADA. As for Kenya, in December 2016, WADA’s Intelligence and Investigations Department, together with the World Athletics’ Athlete Integrity Unit (AIU) launched a project to examine the doping practices of Kenyan athletes and found that the doping practices of Kenyan athletes are unsophisticated, opportunistic, and uncoordinated.

The allegations laid out in the opinion piece are uncalled for, especially to those Kenyan athletes who have always chosen to be dedicated and committed to staying clean and winning right. Following previous press statements and updates issued by Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK), we would like clarify some of the issues raised in that article and maintain our position THAT:

• As of February 20, 2020 ADAK has overseen the prosecution of 106 Anti-Doping Related Violation Cases (ADRVs).

• ADAK currently has three ongoing criminal cases against athletes who have forged medical documents. Additionally, ADAK directly assisted in the investigation of Jemima Sumgong’s medical documents which we found to be falsified and forwarded the same findings to the relevant anti-doping organizations for further action.

• ADAK’s Intelligence and Investigations team reached out to the Norwegian journalist- Mr Bergan who posted the alleged doping paraphernalia in Iten on a Facebook page – requesting for further information regarding the matter. Mr Bergan has to date not given any detail on the same. We are still ready to receive any information from him as our communication channels are always open.

• ADAK is part of a multi-agency team between the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) which is jointly investigating the unauthorised sale of EPO and other Performance Enhancing Substances (PES) in Kenya.

• Integrity upholds a nation and ADAK believes it. As an Agency we are always ready to investigate and prosecute any bribery case brought forward. We call upon the public to utilise our communication channels and reporting portal. Our Doping Control Officers (DCO) have never been implicated in any bribery attempt or act.

• Kenya has never criminalised doping, therefore the accusation that criminal penalties for doping in Kenya were relaxed after the 2016 Rio Olympics are false and unfounded. However, we are currently in the process to introduce amendments to the Anti-Doping Act of 2016. This is likely to provide an opportunity to impose more firm and strict sanctions to individuals who are found to have violated the Anti-Doping Rules.

• ADAK is in no position to conceal positive cases. In the event of a positive case, the results are posted in the Anti-Doping Administration & Management System (ADAMS) where WADA and the respective International Federations have full access to the same. The allegation that ADAK and AK held discussions with the intention to hide positive cases is false, and the document in question was found to be a forged document.

Kenya remains undeterred in the fight against doping in sport and ADAK continues to educate the public on the consequences of doping through our anti-doping education and awareness team, during the outreach sessions, workshops and value based activities as well as the online Anti-Doping e-learning Portal available on our website. Our Testing and Compliance team is also continuously collecting samples both in and out of competition from athletes for analysis as well as gathering intelligence and conducting investigation on suspected doping activities around the country.

• This media release was published by the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) on 2 June 2020. To download a PDF of the original, please click here.