Sebastian Coe is ready to ban Kenya’s track and field team from the Olympic Games in Rio if the country’s athletics federation is declared non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency code.
Kenya last week missed a deadline to prove to Wada it was doing enough to combat doping and the IAAF president has confirmed he will impose serious sanctions on any nation guilty of attempting to cover up drug-taking.
“We know a disproportionate amount of reputational damage is caused by a relatively few countries and we have to be much more proactive,” Lord Coe told BT Sport’s The Clare Balding Show. “Yes, if it means pulling them out of world championships or Olympic Games then we will have to do that.
“I know the World Anti-Doping Agency has looked very closely at the Kenyan National Anti-Doping Agency. We, of course, monitor that through the IAAF, so that work is ongoing.”
Russia, banned from athletics in November after being found guilty of state-sponsored doping, aims to prove it has changed its ways before Rio. The scandal has engulfed the whole sport of athletics, with Coe admitting his reputation may now be on the line.
“When you look at the horror show that has unfolded in the last six months, year or so, the question we all have to ask ourselves – and I’m not immune from that, I ask myself this every day – is how on earth did we get to this position?
“The guiding principle for me is to get the right people with the right motives in the sport, and by a distance they are there. We’ve just got to elevate them now.”
Nestlé and Adidas have attempted to sever their sponsorship ties with the IAAF, which has vowed to keep the companies on board.
“They want to know what changes I am prepared to make,” Coe said. “Am I serious about that? Yes, I am. Is it the only thing I’m focused on? Yes. Will we get those in place as quickly as we can? Yes, we will. But they have boards of shareholders, they have corporate governances themselves, so they are asking the right questions and a large part of my waking hours is flying around the world explaining to them why it is my intention to never return to this again.”
Wilson Kipsang has urged Kenya’s government to fend off the threat of an Olympics ban by bolstering the fight against doping. The president of the Professional Athletes Association of Kenya was among 80 athletes who met in Eldoret on Wednesday to formulate an appeal to Kenya’s government to fast-track legislation criminalising doping.
“If we are banned, Kenya will never be the same again,” the former marathon world record holder said. “This is a country which has made its name as an athletics giant. We have done well in the Olympic and world championships and therefore, we should not miss out complying with the doping directives.
“Since the formation of Adak [the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya], the agency has never been formalised and most importantly given powers to deal with doping. It also needs legislative will from government.”
Kip Keino, the former Olympic gold medallist who heads Kenya’s Olympic committee, echoed Kipsang’s sentiments.
“It is for the government to act and see what they can do regarding this matter,” he said. “This is the IAAF ethics commission’s work. They reckon we are too slow. We will do our best. We will put our heads together with the government and Adak and AK [Athletics Kenya]. But government must do the donkey work. It must take the draft bill to cabinet and be enacted. We are too slow.”
