Doping: Sebastian Coe clears Kenyan state

Sébastien Coe has chosen Kenya for his first international trip of 2023. For several months, doping has been rife in this East African country, long renowned for its distance runners. The home of Eliud Kipchoge is on the red list of World Athletics. Seventeen Kenyan athletes failed anti-doping tests in 2022, while a total of 55 are currently suspended. Unlike Russia, which was suspended over doping, Kenya faces no sanction. Sébastien Coe explained: "We have taken a different approach with Kenya from the one we took with Russia because these were two different cases. The case against Russia involved planned cover-ups at state authority level, but there is nothing to suggest that is the case in Kenya. In fact, it is rather the opposite," Coe said at a joint press conference in Nairobi.

On the same subject: Doping: 2022, a dark year for Kenya

The head of world athletics even praises the Kenyan state's remarkable work against doping. " The fact that all these agencies are aligned and ready to work alongside World Athletics and the Athletic Integrity Unit is a very, very important statement." The Kenyan authorities have indeed pledged to spend 24 million euros over five years to fund the fight against doping, including recruiting extra officers, increasing the number of tests and strengthening education and awareness programmes for athletes. "Rather than hiding from these grim statistics, rather than burying our heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, we accepted the challenge. We agreed that we had a problem and we prepared ourselves for how to tackle that problem," insists Kenya's Sports Minister, Abadu Namwamba.