Kenya will know her fate when the World Athletics general Council seats to have its deliberation on the status of the doping menace that has engulfed the country this year in a meeting that will be held tomorrow (Tuesday 29) in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
The World Athletics, World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) are part of the council that will determine if the country will be sanctioned or not.
This comes as the world Athletics president Sebastian Coe gave Kenya a thumbs up for the effort that the country is putting in place to curb the erratic doping violations and the more resources that the government is adding to aid the fight.
The WA president was responding to a communique that was released by the Cabinet Secretary for Youth Affairs, Sports and the Arts, Ababu Namwamba on Saturday.
“I welcome the additional resources provided by the Government of Kenya in the fight against doping. The only way we can reduce the magnitude of this problem is the collective commitment of all sports stakeholders in Kenya,” said Coe.
Kenya might be the main discussion in the meeting after more than Fifty-five Kenyan athletes who are currently banned and eight provisionally suspended, according to the data from the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU).
The newly appointed CS has had a series of night meetings trying to mitigate the situations before the said meeting happens. The CS applauded the World Athletics president for acknowledging the countries efforts in the fight against doping.
Namwamba last week revealed that the government had pledged to increase funding of over Kshs 600 million for the period of five years.
“The government of Kenya respects and upholds the right of all athletes to participate in sports without using stimulants. Additionally, our authorities support the promotion of health, justice and equality for all people participating in sports and recreation,” said Namwamba
“We are therefore alarmed and saddened by the increase in Kenyan athletes using doping agents, which has tragically resulted in the most unfortunate downgrading of Kenya’s premium status and led to classification as a Doping Rules in Athletics. This “Category A” violator under the World Anti-doping Rules in athletics. This is despite the existing legal framework enacted to tame the doping vice,” Namwamba stated.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) now World Athletics included the distance-running superpower on a list of nations most at risk of doping in July 2018.
It came as part of new regulations by the WA Council put more responsibility on National Federations to deal with the problem.
Kenya is among four countries included in Category A – member federations the World Athletics believe are most likely to have doping problems – along with Ethiopia, Belarus, hosts of next year’s European Games, and Ukraine.
