ELDORET (Kenya): A team of ‘trustable’ team of doctors will from Tuesday start monitoring Kenya’s top runners in a bid to stamp out doping that has tainted the country’s athletics.

The doctors have been chosen by Athletics Kenya and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) which last year warned Kenya over a possible global ban from competition.

Athletics Kenya chief Jackson Tuwei said an initial team of five “trustable Kenyan doctors” had been picked to monitor Kenya’s top runners and “limit bad medical practices and doping-promoting behaviours by some Kenyan health professionals.”

The doctors will prepare a monthly report to be sent to the IAAF medical and anti-doping commission.

Tuwei warned that any athlete who failed to comply would not be selected for international competition.

“It is absolutely mandatory for these elite athletes to go through this network. It is painful, it is strict, it is critical ... but we have to do it,” Tuwei said. “Forty-nine athletes have been found to have violated the World Anti-Doping Agency code in the past five years but were cautioned.”

The initial list of 109 elite athletes to take part in the programme include Kipchoge, Sumgong, two-time Olympic 800m champion and world record holder, David Rudisha and javelin world champion, Julius Yego. Others are Vivian Cheruiyot and Ezekiel Kemboi.

Published in Dawn January 17th, 2017