Doping menace lurks but AK sleeping on job
What you need to know:
- However, until they pull it off, I still don’t consider it an achievement. Besides, the time AK chose to talk about their achievements is quite wrong because Kenyans are more concerned with this animal called doping.
- But the action we have seen from AK so far are summons for athletes to appear before them with others being given bans. There is nothing wrong with that but we have heard athletes talking about lack of education on doping.
- The same athletes are crying for an audience with AK to know what is happening because as it is at the moment they do not know who is next.
The recent communication by Athletics Kenya on what they think has been their biggest achievement this year cannot go unchallenged.
I have been scratching my head the whole week in search of answers why an association of AK’s calibre would want to bend that low in a bid to look good but I am yet to find one. By now, AK should be knowing the difference between an achievement and an obligation.
The fact that they took teams to the inaugural World Relays Championships in Bahamas and World Mountain Running Competitions in Italy in May and September respectively is, for their information, an obligation.
That is what they were appointed to do and bragging about it leaves no doubt that they do not know why they are in office. Surely, Kenyan athletes started participating in international athletes in 1954 and this can never be an achievement. Even gold medals won by athletes are considered individual achievements and not AK’s.
This is why we can still remember what legendary Kipchoge Keino won in the 1960s yet we can’t recall who was in the office then. In fact, to be fair, the biggest achievement for AK this year is winning the bid for the 2017 World Youth Championships.
THIS ANIMAL CALLED DOPING
However, until they pull it off, I still don’t consider it an achievement. Besides, the time AK chose to talk about their achievements is quite wrong because Kenyans are more concerned with this animal called doping.
But the action we have seen from AK so far are summons for athletes to appear before them with others being given bans. There is nothing wrong with that but we have heard athletes talking about lack of education on doping.
The same athletes are crying for an audience with AK to know what is happening because as it is at the moment they do not know who is next.
Indeed AK need not to operate from their comfort zone in Nairobi and give summons. They need to go down to camps and get to the root of the matter. Condemning doping with the rest of Kenyans is not helping the very athletes they are supposed to be guiding.
At this rate we are not only going to become a laughing stock but we will also lose the athletics legacy, which we have worked so hard to build over the years.
The issue of doping is no laughing matter and it is not going to go away soon. So if we do not take it seriously, it will consume everybody.
