No country competing in the track and field competition at the Paris Olympics has had its athletes subjected to more drug testing than Kenya in recent years. There is a reason for that.
Not only is the East African nation a running powerhouse, it has also been trying to emerge from a major cheating crisis first detected nearly a decade ago.
About 300 athletes from Kenya have been punished for using banned substances since 2015. The situation was so bad at one point that track and field officials had discussed the possibility of the unthinkable: a ban similar to those imposed on Russia, another sporting powerhouse whose doping past — among other issues — has rendered it conspicuous by its absence in Paris.
Kenya’s vast footprint, and dominance, of track and field since Naftali Temu brought home the country’s first gold medal at the 1968 Games meant losing the nation would have diminished the entire sport, said Barnabas Korir, an executive committee member of Kenya’s athletics federation.
Without Kenya, he said, “other countries will feel they will not get a proper competition because this country has some of the best athletes, deeper talent than any country”
“That is why,” he added, “the chance was given to Kenya to redeem itself from this problem.”