'Kenya shouldn't bury head in the sand over age cheating scandal'

it's not an African problem. it's a European problem. it's the European coaches, agents and doctors who go to East Africa to find athletes to recruit, dope, manipulate and extort. Yes - it's fair to say that there's a huge problem with doping and age cheating in East Africa, but it's caused by Europeans (who - let's be honest - have caused a lot of problems around the world and then blamed those problems on the victims).

Yeah, the British are really sore losers. I'm an American living in London and I had a British guy in the office today say "oh, yeah, I heard about the 1500m at the Olympics where the American only beat Kerr because the Norwegian guy opened up the inside lane to let him run right through." Hahahaha, LOL. I didn't mind Kerr before, but now I really enjoy the fact that he got his ass handed to him - especially since it was by an American.

I read it. Much ado about nothing.

I mean Tadese Worku ran 26:46 in a track 10,000 this year, and would probably make every Olympic team in the world outside of Ethiopia and Kenya. He's only a complete nobody to you because of where he's from. Mengesha has won several half marathons (including sub-59) and performed solidly in the marathon.

Soget lost to Jakob, so he's strange to bring up. Manangoi, yeah he's struggled as a senior though is that age or just injuries? Zakayo is an OK road racer/XC runner nowadays, but yes I suspect his age was incorrect.

I think Will Coop has noted that Ethiopian media earlier said that the Ethiopian you're referring to in Biniam Mehary was 18 or 19 and not 17 as he was later listed as. I am pretty dubious though he does look like he could certainly be 19. Ditto Birke Haylom who I'd bet is 20-21 not 18. Granted, both athletes are done with junior competition so it doesn't matter a whole ton. Mehary looks like he's not even going to bother with junior competition as I don't see him on the startlists for Lima.

Soget lost to Jakob, so he's strange to bring up. Manangoi, yeah he's struggled as a senior though is that age or just injuries? Zakayo is an OK road racer/XC runner nowadays, but yes I suspect his age was incorrect.

May have been age, but his rapid decline suggests having his brother banned, and no doubt the AIU testing the hell out of the Rongai camp played a huge part.

Crazy how both Manangoi's 'injuries' happened almost exactly at the same time, just around when Elijah must have realized he was facing a whereabouts suspension.

If Jakob and Filip had both started suffering injuries at the same stage of the season in 2019, then Filip had been suspended for missing three tests, and neither he nor Jakob ever broke 3:36 again, not many people here would continue to defend them. Perhaps not even you.

At the time, nearly everybody here was saying that George Manangoi and Zakayo were both much older than their stated ages. In the case of Zakayo, even the Kenyan media had their doubts.

standardmedia.co.ke

Kenyan athlete Zakayo downplays criticism over his age

@StandardKenya

The world under-20 5000m champion yesterday told off those doubting his age and instead directed them to his parents and Kenyan authorities.

Open link

Drug cheating + age cheating = that entire country should be banned.

Coevett trusts people on a sliding scale according to the shade of their skin. The Albino he trusts the most. It is really sort of sad.

Maybe so, I don't know. He didn't compete in the COVID match race vs. Jakob and co. So he was probably injured before the whereabouts trouble. He has no results on the year

He ran 3:35.86A to finish 5th in 2022 in the Kenyan WC Trials which is a very solid performance considering Kenya's top 4 that year was strong. He then finished runner-up in two slow races in France, as obviously the DL invites were no longer coming after his heyday of 2018-19.

If you wanted to be intellectually honest about the whole thing, did Henrik's results fall off a cliff after the Fancy Bears revelation in 2017? Somewhat yes. I will note Filip did run fast in 2018. No Rongai athletes (including the Manangois) on that "Likely Doping" list either.

The biggest argument for saying Manangoi's age was incorrect is that a LetsRun guy on the ground said Elijah was 2 years older than listed. Certainly wouldn't surprise me, but also doesn't explain the dropoff as you say.

As far as Zakayo, yeah I mean that one obviously flunks the eye test.

Yeah, vastly inferior. Since years you are predicting (praying for) this. 7 of the last 10 Olympic 800m champs are from Kenya, Wanyony (Wayumi, Wayoni, Wanyouny, Wanyoumi, Wayouni, Wayonyi, Wyoming - I know, you know many more variations) just recently was close to the WR, After running from the front.

What do you think - new WR tomorrow?

YOU are Hoady? It explains a lot.

Some of that is true. But you types always fail to mention the morality issues among most African peoples and then call those who mention this unarguable fact ‘ray-ciss’.

Could you please explain the morality issues among most African peoples? I suppose you are a gentleman and a scholar?

at the pro level, age hardly matters whether kenya is faking them or not. does anyone actually care about the U20 records? it's a cool title to have, but having that title doesn't win the olympics or world championships. at best, sponsors will have their eyes on you for potential long term talent. anyways, it still blows my mind that so many people talk about kipchoge faking his age. if his age was that far off, you would expect him to have retired 10 years ago, but it was only 2 years ago that he ran the marathon WR.

Kipchoge was alleged to be 25 when he said he was 18, so now he must be 47. No wonder he struggled in OG

Lots of people thought Geb and Kipchoge were age cheats back when they were “juniors.” In fairness, yes, they looked quite old for supposed teenagers. But if they were age cheats as juniors, that means the first man under 2:04 and the second fastest of all time were both over 40 when they accomplished those things (which if true would be kind of awesome).

Coevette is only interested in how some Africans look older than they are. Cannot understand it because he normally only looks at white people where 18yo's drive cars, vote etc without anyone knowing they are that young.

By his reckoning, Wanyoni (which he doesn't even bother to spell right) is now 24 and aging at 1.2 times the normal rate. Kipchoge is 47, Bekele is 50

Lol. How disingenuous. Look at crime stats for starters - anywhere they live.

Yeah Mehary was initially reported as 18 last year I think then entered WA at 16. What I do find interesting/puzzling is that almost every Ethiopian track athlete starts in the junior ranks. Unlike Kenyans - Brian Komen, Daniel Ebenyo, Abel Kipsang etc.) Every Ethiopian male track athlete at these Olympics competed U20 except Mehari, a junior. You'd expect most of the best athletes in the world to be good from the start but some ages really make me question their validity when you're seeing 15-17 year olds running crazy fast times no matter the age.

In the book Out of Thin Air by Michael Crawley he mentions that at that time (~2016) the junior category in Ethiopia was considered more so on skill level than age. Perhaps the same was/is true in Kenya though I think we should applaud them for taking action in mandating birth certificate at U20 races now. We can look at some of the U20 Kenyans now and see they are still in high school or just graduated like Samuel Kibathi and Ishmael Kipkirui, this makes me more likely to believe their ages. I am still skeptical of others.

For example there's a guy who is part of the Japanese SUBARU corporate team and is listed in WA as 21 years old but uses another profile to compete in junior meets (WXC this year and Kenyan U20 track trials). This is just one example of several that are more obvious.

Also I remember seeing something about some crazy number of about 400 I think Ethiopians stopped from competing at the U20 champs because of age manipulation

So yes this is clearly a problem, I'm glad Kenya is doing something about it, hopefully Ethiopia is too and we can have a fair U20 World Champs next week.

Isn't it funny how when a black runs fast then it's cheating and impossible for a human to be that fast...but when a white does it (and they have the longest history of doping) it's skill or talent or hard work!