WADA is "very frustrated" with Kenyan authorities over their lack of progress in a doping investigation they promised over a year ago, the world anti-doping body's top official in Africa said on Monday.
Kenya's government and national track and Olympic organisations had assured the World Anti-Doping Agency's president on a personal visit he made in October 2012 that they would appoint a task force to look at allegations of an emerging doping culture in Kenyan athletics made by a German broadcaster ahead of the London Olympics.
Yet 12 months later, WADA hasn't been told whether the investigating team has even started its work, WADA's Africa Office Director Rodney Swigelaar told AP.
"We are very frustrated," Swigelaar said in a telephone interview in his native South Africa.
"It's more than a year now since we went there in October and even longer since the rumours started to spread.
"We have not been informed that this task team is in place."
Swigelaar said he accompanied WADA President John Fahey on his visit, and made two more trips in March and July to meet with government and sports officials in the East African country.
Kenya has regularly provided world and Olympic champions in middle and long distance running, but its doping controls have been under scrutiny since German television station ARD said it exposed doping and lax controls in the nation's famed high-altitude and remote training locations.
There has been little progress with the probe, said Swigelaar, who has not had any update from Kenya since July.
"The procrastination has been frustrating," he said.
"Officially I cannot say where they are at with their investigation."
The need for Kenya to properly probe the allegations first made by ARD and initially vehemently denied by Kenyan authorities was underlined when 13 of its runners failed doping tests in the 12 months from January 2012 to January 2013, according to the IAAF's published list of banned athletes.
Kenya's national track federation conceded in April to AP that the higher-than-usual number of positive tests - more than one a month - was a concern.
Share
