John Anzrah was sent home after he was found with runner Ferguson Rotich’s Olympic accreditation card, and after he had provided a urine sample for a doping test and signed forms in the name of Rotich, Kenyan team leader Stephen Arap Soi said.
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Anzrah had been due to move into the Olympic village once some other Kenyan athletes and officials had departed having finished their events.
Rotich allegedly asked for money in the return for information about when and where athletes would be visited by drug testers.
One sports administrator has been sent home, Mr Rotich is in incarceration.
After Anzrah was discovered, Rotich went to the doping test and gave both blood and urine samples, the agent said.
“We can not tolerate such behaviour”, Kip Keino, chairman of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock), told the Reuters news agency.
Rotich was sent home from the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro after the allegations were published, and Kenyan authorities promised to show him “no mercy” in the latest of a series of doping scandals to rock Kenyan track and field over the last four years.
But the doping officials, ever-vigilant defenders of a PED-free sport, had a photo of the unnamed athlete Anzah was impersonating, and quickly realized they were face to face with a gentleman that probably yells at the occasional cloud.
The country had twice failed to meet Wada’s requests for anti-doping mechanisms to be put in place, with athletes facing special testing before the Games.
Prosecutor Duncan Ondimu told Njagi that Rotich was arrested Tuesday at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport upon his arrival from Brazil, and police have not had time to conduct and conclude their inquiry. ‘It is about a video, it is about a newspaper, it could be a gutter press, ‘ he added.
That controversy, on the first full day of these games, came just a day after Kenya was removed from the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of “non-compliant” nations, but this fresh issue will put a greater spotlight on the African nation.
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At least 40 of the country’s track and field athletes have been banned since the 2012 Olympics.
