Source: Spe15 (France)
Elijah Manangoi was suspended for two years because of three failed doping controls. He is the 2nd world champion sanctioned for this reason in two months. And the 139th Kenyan to be suspended for doping…
It appears that this athlete may have been wrongly convicted through no fault of his own and hopefully he will have legal recourse to revise his case with the appropriate law officials and understanding of the Kenyan Athletics Federation.
Almost every month Kenya sets a sad new record for the number of suspended athletes. And not the least! Elijah Manangoi joins this sinister list of Kenyans implicated in doping acts. They are to date more than 50 banned from competition and they have been sanctioned 138 since 2008. With him, it is again a world champion who is sacked.
And to think that the theory of too many Kenyan specialists was that doping hit the "underlay", understand athletes without too much talent, but so greedy for money that they took questionable shortcuts.
Brother Colm, the emblematic Irish priest who became a benchmark coach in Iten, especially thanks to David Rudisha, was one of them, and he thus underlined in 2015, when the doping cases started to emerge, that they mainly concerned intermediate level athletes, and road runners.
But these arguments exploded in full flight, and over the months, it is track specialists and showing very large records who have joined this cohort of banned.
The most recent, Elijah Manangoi, confirms this trend, he had the world title conquered in 2017, and a personal best of 3’28’’80, which placed him in the top 11 of all time.
7 suspensions for missed checks
The Manangoi case is also very emblematic of the Athletics Integrity Unit's desire to track down questionable athletes by using all the legal arsenal at its disposal, and in particular that of failed anti-doping controls.
Three failed tests between July and December 2019, and Elijah Manangoi leaves through the back door. As was the case this year for Christian Coleman, Wilson Kipsang, Alfred Kipketer, Deajah Stevens, Alex Korio Oliotiptip, Michelle Lee Ahye. The IAU has also decided to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the acquittal of Salwa Aid Naser.
The time for pretense seems over, and the IAU no longer appears willing to accept all these phony excuses given by athletes to justify their shortcomings. Especially since some seem to be "copy-pasted" from one folder to another. For example, the argument of delay due to a traffic jam can be found at Manangoi, as at Wilson Kipksang at the start of the year.
From now on, the IAU also insists on the responsibility imposed by a star status in athletics, which requires real professionalism which also includes good management of location constraints. And thus rejects pseudo alibis, like that of Manangoi who maintains that his injury has affected his mental health, that he suffers from outbursts of anger, and loss of memories ...
No more unannounced checks
The AIU's new strategy is also based on an increase in unannounced tests, with 7,772 in 2019, compared to 6,007 the year before. And on the new possibility of controlling an athlete at any time, including outside the scheduled time on his whereabouts, which thus caused the downfall of Christian Coleman.
Does a suspension for missed tests have less "mouth" than a positive control? This is the view of some anti-doping experts, but pragmatism prevails at the IAU, as three no shows still lead to a two-year suspension. Admittedly, it is not the 4 years that a positive athlete receives, but these two years can precipitate a career stoppage, and an exit by the back door.
This shorter sanction also justifies the athletes' risk-taking, to point out to absent subscribers that their course of doping products has not yet been completed, and that their analyzes show them that all traces of the products have not disappeared. The choice of temporary disappearance then becomes a good strategy especially when one is only 27 years old like Elijah Manangoi, or 24 years old like Christian Coleman, and a comeback after two years seems very possible.
Kenyans are annoyed by this harassment
In Kenya, this cat and mouse game is particularly irritating, with the theory of harassment carried out against Kenyan athletes, since they are already 4 this year sanctioned for this reason, against 3 in the rest of the world. The Kenya Athletics Federation claims they are falling because of their ignorance of the rules, and since July it has rolled out an app that can be downloaded to phones, and translated into Kiswhahili, to help keep locations up to date.
Of course, we will not prevent that like all athletes suspended for no shows, Elijah Manangoi screams his innocence, and claims all goes that he is "clean" and has never resorted to doping. But the verbal posturing will quickly fade ... The decisions will remain