Let’s jealously guard our athletics like a cherished heritage

The makers of the recently released documentary by German television station ARD on doping at Lorna Kiplagat’s High Altitude Training Camp in Iten must not try to enter that picture in any work of fiction in the world because it can’t win. They should also stay away from any credible competition on investigative journalism because they could find themselves the subject of an investigation on violation of professional ethics.

My suggestion is they just throw it in a trash can, like the green one they showed in their documentary, and forget the whole thing. That should give them sufficient time to ponder the damage done to the credibility of their 66-year-old organisation, the largest of its kind in the world. That is, if they think this matters at all.

But away from their unworthy tactics of apparent entrapment of unsuspecting or gullible subjects and stage managing of scenes in their desperation to do a famous story on the eve of a global occasion, let us ourselves find time to soberly reflect on a scourge threatening one of our most precious national resources – athletics.

Since our independence, athletics not only saved Kenya anonymity and possible irrelevance in the world arena, but it also gave us a cherished place in the sun. In rhythmic cycles of two and four years since 1956, our athletes have called the world to Kenya’s attention in brilliant ways that bring ecstasy to our hearts and tears to our eyes usually all at the same time.

Countries that make it easier for ordinary Kenyans to scale the pointed peaks of Batian and Nelion on Mount Kenya than to obtain entry visas to their capitals crave the presence of our athletes. They shower them with all manner of inducements and give them residences. In recent years, they have taken to out-rightly buying them so that they could do for them what they do for us.

It is true that our wildlife has also brought us attention, including through a spectacle now called the Eighth Wonder of the World. It is also true that some of our other citizens have forced people around the world to look at the map again and search for this country called Kenya. The son of a Kenyan who rules the United States has. And so have Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai and Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o.

But consistency has come through athletics, through those seasons that come and go and yet never change – the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, the World Athletics Championships, the World Cross Country championships, the World Junior Championships and all the national competitions that underpin them.

Since our first Olympic Games in Melbourne 60 years ago, our experience has been akin to that of travelling on a road with one bright signpost after another: Nyandika Maiyoro, Seraphino Antao, Wilson Kipkurgut Chuma, Kipchoge Keino, Ben Jipcho, Naftali Temu, Sabina Chebichi, Rose Tata-Muya, Julius Sang, Charles Asati, Ruth Waithera, Mike Boit, Paul Ereng, Lorna Kiplagat, Edna Kiplagat, John Ngugi, Paul Tergat, David Rudisha…the comprehensive list would light the road from Mombasa to Kisumu.

BAD NAME

This is the priceless resource that is now threatened with a bad name. This is the heritage that is now being called to question for after besmirching the generation of Rio de Janeiro 2016, the next documentary will be a historical one: it will seek to prove that previous generations were also dopers only that the detection regime of that time was not rigorous enough. It can’t be allowed to happen. Only a country that doesn’t know what it is doing can allow it.

Regrettably, many times we look like a country that doesn’t know what it is doing. In recent months, we dodged a Rio ban by the skin of our teeth, a possibility that was occasioned entirely by bureaucratic incompetence at the highest level. If we are not careful, our great heritage could be destroyed as we watch – and don’t be in a rush to call this alarmist scaremongering.

Not everybody who claps for us and not everybody who comes here with an ear-to-ear grin means well. Pulling down somebody who is above you has been a human aspiration since people walked on two legs. It is as natural as breathing. There are enough competitors in this world who would love to write our epitaph as a once-powerful athletics power.

The problem for us is neither their enormous capacity nor their determination. It is our weaknesses. We are in so many ways a poor and weak country which recourses at imagining that we are rich and strong to feel better. Look at the first two cases of doping in our history. They involved the cross-country maestro, John Ngugi and the boxer, David Munyasia.

Ngugi never doped. He just refused an out-of-competition random test by world anti-doping officials who happened upon him at his Nyahururu farm.

Asked to submit to a urine test, Ngugi balked, deeply offended that such a demand could be made in the presence of his wife and children. The African in him raged at their effrontery and he sent the officials on their way.

For his pains, he received a four-year suspension. It was only then that Athletics Kenya became aware of the seriousness of the problem just like the declaration earlier this year that Kenya was not compliant with the Wada Code and therefore ineligible to compete in Rio de Janeiro. It shook Hassan Wario into knowing the gravity of the nation’s situation in the world.

Athletics Kenya desperately appealed the decision against Ngugi and the athlete himself reportedly spent about Sh8 million of his own money to fight his case. He won a Pyrrhic victory; no case of doping against him was established. He was only found to be a man of limited education and culpability lay in Athletics Kenya for failing to educate him on his obligations.

His ban was reduced but the damage was already done; the long lay-off had taken its toll and the five-time world cross country’s career lay in tatters.

And David Munyasia? He took along with him a few bundles of miraa to the Olympic Games of Athens in 2004. He peeled and chewed nonchalantly, contemplating the opponents ahead of him. Then in short order, a drug test was done on him and he failed it. His urine was found to contain cathine, a performance enhancing substance and Munyasia was promptly booked on the next flight home.

Yet again, officials had failed their charge. How was poor Munyasia, who hailed from the backwaters of Nairobi’s slums, ever to know that he was acting against his own best interests?

The law has no mercy, especially to those who do not know it. We remember Munyasia, not for the achievements that earned him a slot in the Olympic Games, but for the ending of his career in disgrace.

The casualness with which the Cabinet Secretary responsible for sport handled the establishment of anti-doping infrastructure compliant with the requirements of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the ease with which anybody can enter this country and work, or purport to work, go anywhere they like and do anything they like, the ignorance of officials charged with the onerous task of taking care of their charges, is unnerving.

I would dare ARD to try what they did at the HATC in Iten to some camp in Ethiopia and I bet before they blinked, they would be landing in Berlin. That is assuming that they would have accomplished the highly unlikely feat of clearing customs at Bole Airport.

As a nation, we were saved a potential disgrace only by the superlative internal mechanisms of the privately-run facility which are so refreshingly transparent and professional.

I was immensely distressed to listen to the highest official of the newly-minted Kenya Anti-Doping Agency lend credence to ARD’s highly flawed work.

The information he found in the video, he said, “is very shocking. I have watched it and seen that we have problems on the ground and we are already working with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to ensure that those who are involved in these malpractices, both the athletes and the medical practitioners who may be perpetrating these illegal acts, action is taken against them. We want to go to the Rio Olympics with a clean team.”

Why didn’t he at least try to find out on “the ground” what had actually happened? At the very least, he should have tried to obtain their side of the story before appearing to blame them. He doesn’t have my confidence.

The documentary ends with steeplechaser Brimin Kipruto winning a race and says: “Kenya is the most successful athletics nation in the world.” (Amen to that, despite the contestable accuracy). It then proceeds to make a statement which fills me with apprehension: “But in just a few weeks, when the world sees images like these coming from Rio, skepticism will remain.”

That is where my problem lies: the integrity of our athletics, our resource of inestimable value, must never be open to doubt and we should do everything we can to ensure that.