The IOC said, based on the result of the WADA inquiry, that it “will not hesitate to act with its usual policy of zero tolerance for doping and defending the clean athletes”.
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Kenya is globally acclaimed for its middle and long distance running prowess and the country got a reprieve on Friday after the IAAF cleared its athletes for the Rio Olympics in August. “Kenyan athletes remain eligible to compete nationally and internationally”, read an IAAF statement.
In a statement to Omnisport, the International Olympic Committee added: “A NADO [national anti-doping organisation] can be non-compliant for a number of reasons, there are now a number of others in this position”.
“People are celebrating Olympic champion winners, but we are sitting insane and replacing their urine”, said Rodchenkov.
Kenya would “of course” be discussed at the next International Olympic Committee executive board meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, early next month, the International Olympic Committee said.
The International Association of Athletics Federations said WADA’s action “is a further reflection of the IAAF’s concerns about the level of commitment to anti-doping at the national level in Kenya”.
Kenya went out of its way to pass very harsh anti-doping measures last month-including prison time for offenders-but apparently their testing standards were still inadequate.
“Clean athletes’ rights to a level playing field need to be protected by those who govern sport”, Scott said in the CCES release.
Fearing the possibility of an Olympic ban, Kenyan authorities were scrambling earlier Friday to sort out their problems.
It could suck in hundreds more athletes, keep Russian track-and-field competitors out of the Rio Olympics, force Russian President Vladimir Putin to purge his sports minister and tarnish one of Putin’s proudest achievements: reviving Russian sport. He said the problem areas can be “rewritten or rectified”.
“Although none of the allegations now refer to the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games, we have sent a letter to WADA today asking them to investigate immediately whether any wrong doing took place in the WADA accredited Sochi laboratory during the Paralympic Winter Games”. “No ban was mentioned in the body of the letter”.
In November, Canadian Richard Pound, who helped to found WADA in 1999 and was its president until 2007, led an investigation into allegations that Russian sports were facing a doping crisis.
Having missed two deadlines to show it was addressing serious worries about its anti-doping efforts, Kenya passed legislation last month to create a new national anti-doping agency. Kenya celebrated the passing of the law then and hailed it a success, but WADA on Thursday described it as “a complete mess”.
According to a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), he was for years the kingpin in a sophisticated operation to cover up doping in which dozens of Russian sports officials were implicated.
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Imray reported from South Africa.
