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  Seven Kenyan athletes get doping ban

Seven Kenyan athletes get doping ban

AGENCIES
Published : Nov 29, 2015, 2:26 am IST
Updated : Nov 29, 2015, 2:26 am IST

Two-time world cross country champion Emily Chebet was among the seven given a four-year ban for using the drug Furosemide. — AP

Two-time world cross country champion Emily Chebet was among the seven given a four-year ban for using the drug Furosemide. — AP

Kenya has banned seven athletes, including two women sprinters sent home from the World championships in Beijing, for doping offences, Athletics Kenya said Saturday.

The government’s athletics body “confirmed the sanctioning of the .. athletes for various doping offences,” with bans ranging from two to four years, AK said in a statement.

Sprinters Francisca Koki and Joyce Zakari, who were provisionally suspended by the IAAF and sent home from the Beijing world championships in August, were each given a four-year ban.

They were found guilty for using a prohibited substance, Furosemide.

After the pair tested positive in Beijing, Kenya’s deputy president William Ruto announced plans to criminalise doping.

Many in Kenya fear doping is rife among their top class runners, who have been the source of enormous national pride.

The success of Kenya at Beijing — topping the medals table for the first time since the championships started in 1983, taking seven golds, six silvers and three bronze medals — was tarnished after Manunga and Zakary failed drugs tests.

Two-time world cross country Emily Chebet was also given a four-year ban for using the same drug Furosemide.

Marathon runner Agnes Cheserek tested positive for norandrosterone and will serve four years.

Three other distance runners, Bernard Mwendia, Judy Kimuge and Lilian Moraa Mariita, each received two-year bans.

Mariita, the 2012 Miami half marathon winner, was caught doping with the blood-boosting hormone, EPO.

Kenya, under scrutiny amid allegations of widespread doping in world athletics, had announced the establishment of an anti-doping agency.

IAAF clears Radcliffe In London, the IAAF cleared marathon world record-holder Paula Radcliffe of doping allegations on and rejected claims that it failed to act on hundreds of suspicious blood tests, saying the accusations lacked “any scientific or legal basis.”

Track and field’s governing body issued a 38-page response to allegations by British and German media outlets that it had ignored and tolerated rampant blood doping in the sport.

“The IAAF is not complacent about doping in its sport,” the federation said. “It will continue to use every tool at its disposal to fight doping and protect clean athletes.”

The statement was released a few days before IAAF President Sebastian Coe faces a British parliamentary hearing into the doping allegations made by The Sunday Times newspaper and German broadcaster ARD.

Already reeling from revelations of government-backed doping in Russia and criminal corruption charges against former president Lamine Diack, the International Asso-ciation of Athletics Federa-tions said it had a duty to set the record straight on the blood doping issue.

“The IAAF cannot sit idly by while public confidence in its willingness to protect the integrity of its sport is undermined by allegations of inaction/incompetence that are based on bad scientific and legal argument,” it said.

The IAAF singled out the case of Radcliffe, saying the three-time London Marathon winner was publicly accused of doping “based on the gross misinterpretation of raw and incomplete data.”

Location: Kenya, Nairobi