Kenyans disregard doping sanctions

For some Kenyan runners, a doping ban is not a total ban.

Benjamin Kiprop Serem bagged 50,000 Indian rupees ($740) for winning the Calicut Mini-Marathon in India on March 1, 2015, midway through his two-year ban for using the steroid nandrolone at the Beirut Marathon in 2013.

Bernard Mwendia Muthoni placed sixth in the Melaka River International Marathon in Malaysia last December, even though his two-year ban for a nandrolone byproduct runs to Nov. 15 this year.

That banned runners can compete speaks to loose policing of Kenya’s offshore running industry. Kenya’s athletics federation says it has 4,000 athletes registered in its database and concedes that it struggles to keep close track of runners who compete, and often train and live, overseas. Before he was suspended in February following allegations that he solicited bribes from two athletes, Athletics Kenya CEO Isaac Mwangi said in an Associated Press interview that tracking down Kenyan runners who have tested positive abroad sometimes proves impossible.

Many of the Kenyans caught doping weren’t registered with the federation, Mwangi said. Often, Athletics Kenya only became aware of them when word of their failed tests reached federation headquarters in Nairobi, he said.

“Many of these athletes ... are caught in Mexico, some are in China, especially in Macau. Those are areas that are difficult to control,” Mwangi said. “When these athletes go there and get tested and they turn positive, that’s when we get to know who they are. Because we have a lot of athletes running all over the world.”

— AP