The Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya is trying to make athletics in the country cleaner. A report says that some medical professionals in Kenya are helping elite athletes cheat by taking drugs and not getting caught. Yesterday, a middle distance runner named Eglay Nalyanya was given an eight year ban for using forbidden substances and trying to hide it from testing.
The investigation showed that the paperwork submitted by Nalyanya was very much like the paperwork from another case involving Kenyan Betty Lempus, who got banned for five years back in January.
“Breaking the Rules
Both Nalyanya and Lempus said they got injections into their muscles when they went to the hospital in Kenya.
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), together with the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya, found out that some documents which claimed two athletes had injections at a hospital were not true. The named doctors weren’t real either and neither of the athletes received an injection even though both visited the hospital on those days in question.
After investigating, a special tribunal discovered that some Kenyan athletes were getting help from somebody with lots of medical knowledge in order to cheat and break the doping rules. As an example, runner Eglay Nalyanya was banned for 8 years for wrong-doing three times which she had done while competing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
The recent news has damaged the efforts of Kenya to stop doping. Last year, if they didn’t try to fix the problem, Kenia would’ve been kicked out from international athletics competitions.
David Howman works in an organisation that works alone and he says that they have a plan to help Kenya solve this issue.
He said, “More and more people are cheating in sports in Kenya and this is a huge danger for the sport”.
The AIU (which stands for Athletics Integrity Unit) has been asked by the Kenyan government and other organizations, like Athletics Kenya and the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya, to help fight against the use of doping which is becoming problematic in the country. Everyone recognizes how serious this issue is, so they are going to try their best to find out who’s behind it and enforce punishments so that athletics can remain a fair and honest sport. In addition, medals aren’t seen as important as upholding fairness in this matter anymore. Furthermore, Lord Coe does not believe that any sort of ‘drug cover-up’ is taking place in Kenya.
Athletics Kenya said that they are fighting against drug cheating and working with the AIU which is an organization for athletes to catch people who use drugs in sports. The Kenyan government gave Athletics Kenya five million dollars to help them stop it.
