Important week for Kenyan sports as anti-doping czars, IAAF come calling

Rusada (Russia’s anti-doping agency) chief Yury Ganus (left) and deputy chief Margarita Pakhnotskaya give a media briefing in front of the Rusada office in Moscow after the World Anti-Doping Agency lifted a ban on the Russian agency on September 20, 2018. PHOTO | KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV |

What you need to know:

  • First, Nairobi will host a high level “Kenya Project Taskforce” gathering triggered by the intelligence and investigations department of the beleaguered World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) on Thursday and Friday
  • The Kenyan capital will also – Tuesday and Wednesday - invite officials from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for a preliminary meeting of the 2020 IAAF World Under-20 Championships which Nairobi will host
  • Meanwhile, Uasin Gishu County has welcomed legislators for groundbreaking sessions of The Senate, the first time the upper house is in session outside the Kenyan capital

After an exciting sporting weekend highlighted by birdie-happy Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour comeback and Anthony Joshua’s unrelenting heavyweight boxing juggernaut, the focus pretty much shifts to Kenya this week with important engagements on the roster.

First, Nairobi will host a high level “Kenya Project Taskforce” gathering triggered by the intelligence and investigations department of the beleaguered World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) on Thursday and Friday.

The Kenyan capital will also – Tuesday and Wednesday - invite officials from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for a preliminary meeting of the 2020 IAAF World Under-20 Championships which Nairobi will host.

Meanwhile, Uasin Gishu County has welcomed legislators for groundbreaking sessions of The Senate, the first time the upper house is in session outside the Kenyan capital.

And with the Uasin Gishu County seat of Eldoret touted as the “city of champions”, it’s expected that sports will feature somewhere on the agenda of the honourable members’ house business.

But the Wada session will most certainly draw the greatest global attention coming just days after the anti-doping agency controversially reinstated the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) after three years of suspension following accusations of state-sanctioned doping by Moscow.

Wada’s Director of Intelligence and Investigations, Gunter Younger, Athletics Integrity Unit (Aiu) head Brett Clothier and Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (Adak) CEO Japhter Rugut are expected to jointly address journalists on Friday evening at the close of the two-day session.

With Kenya very much in Wada’s cross-hairs and on the IAAF radar over increased cases of the use of performance-enhancing substances in athletics, that Wada picked Nairobi for the high-profile assembly speaks volumes about the pivotal place Kenya has in the global war against doping.

It’s also a nudge that we must not relent in this war, something the incoming chairman of Adak must be critically aware of.

Daniel Ochieng Macdwalo was on Friday gazetted by President Uhuru Kenyatta as Adak’s new board chairman for a period of three years, replacing James Waweru under whose watch Adak has made huge strides, especially in setting up administrative systems and enforcing testing following the signing into law of the Anti-Doping Act of 2016.

Macdwalo must hit the ground running, and the gathering of global investigators and results management experts, currently handling Kenyan doping cases, will, essentially, be plunging him into the deep end.

In its executive committee meeting last Thursday in Seychelles, Wada argued that Rusada had warmed its way back into amenability by meeting 29 of the 31 requirements set on the compliance roadmap.

Wada head, Sir Craig Reedie, maintains that this was sufficient enough to trust the Moscow authorities, but his agency’s decision met with stinging criticism from athletes and various sporting codes, including the Iaaf who feel Russia still fall short.
Unfettered access to the Russian testing laboratories has still not been guaranteed by Moscow, and many feel Wada may have jumped the gun.

While increased cases of doping in Kenya remain a worry, it will also be interesting to see if Wada’s gathering this week will crack the whip on Nairobi shortly after loosening the noose around Moscow’s neck.

Meanwhile, preparations for the 2020 IAAF World Under-20 Championships start in earnest Tuesday with three officials from IAAF’s Monaco headquarters in Nairobi for a two-day, kick-off site visit.

Paul Hardy (Director of Competitions and Events), Fanny Boquillet (Information and Knowledge Manager) and Toni Jorba (Head of Event Operations) are on a whistle-stop tour to kick-start Nairobi’s preparations for the age-group competition.

After the largely successful hosting of the IAAF’s under-18 championships in Nairobi last year, the U-20s should be a no-brainer.

However, major lessons were learnt from last year’s championships with huge concern raised over expenditure and unpaid dues and some suppliers are still demanding payment from the now defunct championship’s Local Organizing Committee (LOC).

Without jeopardizing current investigations into the aforementioned, it would, nonetheless, be in order to call for careful selection of members to serve in the 2020 championship’s LOC, lest we embarrassingly commit the same crime twice.

Finally, we hope the senators gathering in Eldoret will jumpstart the much trumpeted athletes’ welfare programme to cushion heroes and heroines who have flown the Kenyan flag high, only for them to languish in post-career poverty.

I have in mind heroes like ex-Harambee Stars defender Victor Mbaji and coach Rishadi Shedu who are struggling in Mombasa to raise funds for treatment.

They have been forced to turn to former team-mates, led by former Bandari FC star Ricky Solomon, for their medical bills and daily upkeep, which is a serious indictment of a nation that they made proud in their glory days.

We need legislation that would, for instance, provide a stipend for such national heroes who, sadly, have little to show for patriotic duty.

There could be no better place to launch such a drive than at the senators’ gathering in Eldoret, the “city of champions”, rather than at funerals of fallen stars.

Over to you honourable members!

We look forward to an all-round rewarding week.