Renato Canova wrote:
In the comment of Dubai Marathon, under the generic name of "Letsrun", I read the following phrase, regarding Ruth Chepngetich :
"Chepngetich is certainly a force to be reckoned with moving forward. According to tilastopaja.eu, she’s run four career marathons and all four have gone well (3 wins, slowest time of 2:22:59). At the half, she’s won 5 of her career 10 half marathons but she was just 13th at World Half and 4th at Copenhagen last year; her half pb is 66:19. The only negative is she’s represented by Federico Rosa, who has represented the two biggest EPO cheats in marathon history in Rita Jeptoo and Jemima Sumgong (plus Asbel Kiprop)".
I don't like the current way to attack the management of Rosa, and in direct (or not direct) way Nike.
Of course, Rosa had the higher number of doped athletes, during the last 4-5 years, and some of them were on the top of the World (Jemima Olympic Champion, Asbel Kiprop Olimpic and World Champion, Rita Jeptoo winner of several Majors).
This provokes suspicions about the management : but, how already I had the opportunity to explain in the past, to look at top management as responsible of the doping of individual athletes is something out of the reality.
Federico Rosa is the manager having the higher number of training camp in Kenya. Many of those training camp include one or two athletes of high level only, plus groups of young runners, still at the beginning of their development.
Rosa organized camps in the most part of Kenya : near the two main camps (Kaptagat and Kapsabet), there is the historical camp of Kapsait (at 3100m of altitude), where Brigid Kosgei trains, and something in Kericho, from where Ruth Chepngetich started, before moving to Ngong where she trains without any coach following her training.
Already in 2012 Federico Rosa had some doubt about some of the athletes of Kapsabet camp, and decided, after speaking with IAAF and WADA, to test the athletes of the management, before entering them in some marathon.
Since some test produced doubtful values, Rosa decided to remove those athletes from the management, but for this action was temporary banned by Athletic Kenya, for decision of the Chairman, Isaiah Kiplagat.
Under a logic point of view, a management with a lot of top athletes can't VOLUNTARY risk to spoil its image administering doping to the athletes, and this is something valid for ALL the top managements (Demadonna, Global, Golazo, Pace, Volare, etc...).
However, when the athletes are in all the territory, is not possible to control what they individually do, if there is not a centralized organization. The centralized organization is something that only Global (the Company of Jos Hermens) choose, with the two main camps in Kaptagat (Patrick Sang) and Iten (John Litei), with another camp, smaller, in Keringet (built around Faith Kipyegon for women, and Geoffrey Kirui for men).
In the case of centralized organization, it's possible to educate the athletes always living and training in the camp. This is one of the secrets of Eliud Kipchoge, and now of the new athletes in Iten (Eric Kiptanui, Daniel Kipchumba, Josphat Boit together with Ronald Kwemoi and his young brother).
But, when the athletes are alone, and the coach look at their training only, they can easily involved in wrong ideas, and in some area the idea of doping at the base of the training can become dangerous.
For example, Rosa was fully confident in the coach Talam, as responsible of the athletes in Kapsabet. Talam is a good coach, with good knowledge about training (for marathon) and psychology, and Rosa was happy about his activity.
However, Talam himself was the one believing EPO could give big advantage, and gave the substance to his wife (Jemima Sumgong) and some other athlete of the camp, without any connection with the management. This because wanted to show his ability to produce top athletes, till to win Olympics.
When there were the hearings against Federico Rosa and Claudio Berardelli, following the allegation of Noah Busienei (Rita's husband), the athletes (Rita and Jemima) explained that there was no involvement of coach and manager, and that did everything alone (with pathetic and riciculous excuses, full of lies, that at the end produced other years of ban...).
What we can say, knowing the activity in Kenya on the ground, is that for a management is not possible to control, and to know, what the athletes can do, if not in a training camp where the coach is always with them.
Against Rosa, there are "suspicion" from the belly of some people, but the facts are very much different, and IAAF and WADA well know everything.
So, it's time to finish to involve managements (and specifically Rosa) in the situation of doping in Kenya. Of course, more athletes a management has, more risk of doping there is, but we have to remember that, in the athletics of today, if there are no managers, the athletes never can compete at international level.
Also AK now started an educational program with young athletes (in 2020 the World Junior Championships shall be in Nairobi), explaining why no doping, for the following reasons :
a) It's against the ethic
b) It's dangerous for the health
c) It's a risk for the career
d) The effects are very poor, or nothing, if there is proper training
These kind of clinic are in every Kenyan area, and the level of controls is now very high (probably higher than in any other Country).
So, it's true that in the past the level of controls was poor (also if the number of OOC tests was always high, from 2010, but not at charge of the local antidoping), but now the Federation started a plan for having more control to athletes, coaches and managers, who have to show their specific degrees for being authorized to work with Kenyan athletes.
There are very wrong ideas about the Kenyan situation, today, and it's better than, before writing something not true, fruit of speculations connected with the past problems, the authors can try to know the current reality, in a Country with very fast evolution.
Editor's note: This thread initially had the title, "Chepngetich, Dubai and Rosa" but we changed it to make it more descriptive.