Reid Coolsaet busts the myth that Kenyans don't get tested out of comp

Kenya under investigation for breaching anti-doping code

Kenya is being investigated for breaching the world anti-doping code, WADA said Thursday, and could be declared non-compliant in a matter of weeks.

The investigation relates to the Kenyan government's failure to set up and properly fund a working national anti-doping agency, and also its failure to finalize new anti-doping legislation.

Around 40 Kenyan runners have failed doping tests since the failures of the country's anti-doping program were highlighted in 2012.

They are being investigated for "potential subversion of the anti-doping control process in Kenya" and allegedly embezzling sponsorship money meant for the federation from Nike, the IAAF's ethics commission said.

All the officials deny wrongdoing.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2888591941554b6fa1b5a561d303e32d/kenya-under-investigation-breaching-anti-doping-code

Renato, your statement that I'm taking issue with wasn't that there are "a lot of tests OOC IN KENYA;" it wasn't whether or not, back in 2012, Kenya was "the most tested Country in the World from WADA and IAAF directly;" and it wasn't about whether or not top athletes are being tested. Please focus on the actual words that you wrote:

"The evidence is that THERE ARE IN KENYA MORE TESTS THAT IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, INCLUDING BLOOD TESTS." -Renato Canova, February 2016

Now, can you please provide this evidence that there are currently/recently more tests taking place in Kenya than in any other country in the world? If you cannot provide any evidence, can you at least be honest enough to admit this is simply your opinion and you don't have concrete evidence to back it up with?

The only evidence you have provided is that Russian and Kenyan athletes were the most tested athletes back in 2012. If your main goal here is to encourage people to group Russian and Kenyan athletes in the same category, with regards to 2012 drug testing, then you have accomplished this.

Where there is corruption, testing is meaningless.

trollism wrote:

So what you're saying is that all those 2:06 marathon guys should not be tested at all, cause they're not among the best in Kenya, despite the fact they're probably doping their way to a pretty good living?

Running 10.2 for the 100m in the US isn't going to earn you much money, 2:06, 2:07 will do just fine when it comes to picking up some decent prizes for you and your sketchy (Italian) agent/doctor/coach.

No, he is saying that they are not tested. I don't think he said that they should not be tested. In an ideal world with unlimited resources you could test more. But the reality of the situation is that testing the 300th best athlete in a country is unlikely to be possible, regardless of whether they can make money or not!

So for those guys you are waiting on making a mistake and testing positive at those same small races.

It's a shame that so many American's seem to judge Italians character based on the American's of Italian descent that they are fed by Holywood.

Hmmm... what do you make of these stories?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/9832672/Kenyan-athletes-subjected-to-blood-tests-following-German-television-documentary-claims.html%20

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/25/kenyan-athletes-doping-tests-frimin-kipchoge

Yeah, sounds like a shame. I'm not American by the way, I judge Italians in endurance sport by their horrifically tainted record.

AK is a worthy associate of the IAAF.

jjjjj wrote:

Hmmm... what do you make of these stories?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/9832672/Kenyan-athletes-subjected-to-blood-tests-following-German-television-documentary-claims.html%20http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/25/kenyan-athletes-doping-tests-frimin-kipchoge

I feel sorry for clean Kenyans, but its clear that there is a conspiracy of cheating in Kenya and they need to be banned from international competition, like Russia until they clean house. Those who are corrupt need to serve prison sentences as well as any dopers. Ethiopia needs to be investigated as well. I wonder what Renato Canova's deal is. He claims almost all Kenyans are clean and as soon as evidence of corruption as well as cheating by large numbers of athletes comes out, he doesn't address it. It looks like its too late now, but we should still try to have a fair playing field in Rio, don't you agree Renato?

Head out of your ass please. These are predominantly done in Europe. They can predict when they get tested usually the day after they arrive in Europe to most likely Holland before they are shipped off to race - all carefully controlled. So the key point is that the testing is not done in Kenya.

Edward Teach wrote:

I feel sorry for clean Kenyans, but its clear that there is a conspiracy of cheating in Kenya and they need to be banned from international competition, like Russia until they clean house.

I somewhat agree with you but how do you enforce this ban fairly? Does it include road races in Europe/US where a decent amount money is being made by Kenyan athletes? Do you also ban athletes who have spent large periods of time training in Kenya? Do you ban nations that have been effectively "buying" Kenyan athletes for several years such as Bahrain or Qatar? Do you ban Kenyan athletes from going to US colleges on sports scholarships? You also mention Ethiopia - you can ban Kenya but would that be fair if the situation in Ethiopia has been even worse over the last 25 years?

One possibility of going forward would be to freeze all international T and F competition for a period of 1 to 2 years, do all the investigations required in all nations and then open up competition again but only those nations who have fulfilled all requirements will be allowed to compete. Those nations that are not meeting the requirements will have to keep improving until they are meeting them before they can compete again. No athlete should be allowed to train in a nation that has not fulfilled anti doping requirements.

Another possibly would be to legalize PEDs and to recommend that they are used under medical supervision. I know this sounds strange to some but because of the current situation this would perversely be a fair way of allowing athletes to compete against each other.

Some day ago I (and some manager with many Kenyan athletes in his management) received a letter from Kyle Barber, Intelligence & Out-of-Competition Testing Coordinator, IAAF Medical & Anti-Doping Department, that I put at the knowledge of all the LR posters.

“Dear Renato, please could you spread amongst your athletes in Kenya the name of Hissein Hibre Egal. This man has been pretending to be a Doping Control Officer, and contacting athletes to try and conduct a Doping control on them.

He first call the athletes to arrange the test, saying he will come the following day. He calls from the number : +254 727 904 727.

He may also pretend to be an agent or coach, and sometimes works with two accomplices.

Please note : this individual has nothing to do with the IAAF, WADA, or any other testing or Anti-Doping body.

If you learn of him attempting to contact any of your athletes, please let me know.

Kind regards

Kyle

HQ Tel : +377 93 10 88 88”

How did this cheater act ? He called some athlete of 2nd level by phone (so there was somebody giving him the number of the athlete), fixing the appointment for a urine test the next day.

When he met the athlete, he explained could immediately have the result of the urine analysis using a fake machine.

Few minutes later, he went to the athlete, telling confidentially “I’m sorry, but you are positive to…. (naming some steroid that sometime it’s possible to find in normal medicines in Kenya). You have to be banned for two years, but I can cover your positivity if you give me 2000 USD that I use for cancelling your name from the data base”.

Of course, this tactic could work with athletes who never had any test in their life, since the top runners usually have urine tests, not only after the races, but also Pre-Races and OOC, so well know the procedures legally used.

This man (or, better, this organization) abused of the ignorance of the athletes in the specific material of anti-doping, and of their low level of education in the most part of cases.

But, 4 days ago, he did a mistake. He used the same tactic with an athlete who perfectly knew how the system works, who is a member of Police in Kenya. This athlete called his colleagues, and they went to arrest the cheater, who now is in jail.

This is what several times happens in Kenya, and all the banned athletes speaking for explaining the system (including Ronald Kipchumba, who was caught for EPO after winning Linz Marathon, and we know where he took this EPO : from a pharmacy in Iten where the pharmacist is his “friend of drinking”, who told he could support him without any risk in order to improve his best of 2 minutes) were abused by “professional cheaters” using introduce themselves in the way Kyle Barber explained above.

I can be the whitness that the OOC tests in Kenya (urine) are carried out following all the rules, being everytime done without any previous contact with the athletes.

The problem is the update of whereabouts, using the ADAMS system.

Do you really suppose all the Kenyan athletes in the whereabouts system are able to do personally everything using their computer ? Obviously that’s not the reality, so they need to update their position, every time they move, speaking by phone with the management, which is the practical actor for informing IAAF of some change in the window.

For that reason, sometimes the Anti-Doping control in Kenya can be done in a time of the day different from the one of the official window.

For example, the most part of athletes go on the track on Tuesday (this is not my system), and the officials of Anti-Doping reach the track of Chepkoilel or of Kamarin, directly taking samples from the athletes that IAAF put in the list for that week.

Put in your mind that the weekly deadline for testing the athletes in the list is on Friday, and that in this way the controls are carried out BEFORE the official date (this is very much different from a test carried out AFTER the purposed day by IAAF), so the effect of surprise is always effective.

Now, for answering to Trollism about marathon runners of 2:06-2:07 that are not tested, we need to know how deep is the field of Kenyan runners.

We can see the situation of Kenyan runners during the season 2015 :

MEN (Marathon)

Under 2:07 : 17

Under 2:08 : 31

Under 2:09 : 55

Under 2:10 : 85

MEN (HM)

Under 60:00 : 22

Under 60:30 : 59

WOMEN (Marathon)

Under 2:25 : 11

Under 2:26 : 15

Under 2:27 : 20

Under 2:28 : 27

Under 2:30 : 31

WOMEN (HM)

Under 68:00 : 5

Under 69:00 : 17

Under 70:00 : 32

All these athletes can go abroad winning good prizes in road races.

However, there is no way that, also in Countries where the National Antidoping Agency works very well, athletes not in top 10 in the national lists can be tested OOC, for the cost of every test.

WADA, IAAF and every National Agency prefer to use this money for testing the best in the World (WADA and IAAF) or the best in the Country (National Agency), than to test not-elite athletes.

These are subjected at the normal test AFTER the race, and this is all it’s possible to do.

So, if we have an efficient National Antidoping Agency in Kenya, what can change ?

Nothing about the top runners in the World (in fact, Rita Jeptoo was caught in an OOC test in Kenya), because they are already, and always, tested, and the most part have their BP normally working (and without any suspicion of doping).

Very much more about the athletes of lower level, but not because of OOC tests : because, having money for working, the Kenyan Antidoping Agency can (and must) carry out tests in ALL the road races in Kenya (actually only 2 or 3 have a final antidoping test), and this can be a strong deterrent for all the runners using doping for the first goal to improve their performances in the domestic competitions (only after showing the possibility of a good level they look for competing abroad).

About the possibility to ban Kenya from OG, this is a total bullshit.

Personally, I think this threat has the goal to stimulate the Kenyan Government to invest money in order to create a well working system of antidoping in Kenya, and I think this policy well worked, if yesterday William Ruto, speaking with media, said the Government decided to enhance of other 500 million shillings (about 5 million dollars) the contribution for antidoping in Kenya.

The only thing is to wait and see.

Amusing lolz wrote:

It's a shame that so many American's seem to judge Italians character based on the American's of Italian descent that they are fed by Holywood.

The state run doping program run by Conconi that launched several, now infamous, and banned, doping doctors agree. They are nice guys trying to bring athletes to peak health.

how'd this one turn out? Guess Reid was right.

WOW has this from 2016 aged poorly. Once the AIU started testing in Kenya, quite a few from "the tops of the top" got caught, one after the other.

List here: https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=13071597

Just looking at the banned WR holders: A. Kiptum 2019, Kipsang 2020, Kipruto 2024, Kandie 2025, Koech 2025...