Two female Kenyan athletes have been sent home from the world championships after failing drugs tests, throwing a cloud over the African nation, which is top of the medal table in Beijing.
Koki Manunga and Joyce Zakary accepted provisional suspensions after positive tests last Thursday and Friday respectively.
Zakary set a Kenyan record in her 400 metres heat on Monday, but did not appear for her semi-final the next day. Manunga was eliminated in the heats of the 400 metres hurdles.
The IAAF did not reveal any details of which substance the athletes had failed, but it did disclose that they had been tested at the Kenyan team hotel as part of its pre-competition testing.
The world governing body was criticised at the start of these championships when it was revealed that it would not be blood-testing every athlete at these championships, as it had in 2009 and 2011. It argued that this would allow more targeted testing.
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Yet Kenya, who have had a spike in positive tests in the past 18 months, have certainly been targeted by the testers, with claims that members of their team have been tested up to four times since arriving in Beijing.
Kenya are dominating these world championships, with 11 medals that include six gold medals. That gold rush continued yesterday as Hyvin Jepkemoi won the women’s 3,000 metres steeplechase and Julius Yego won the men’s javelin. Yego’s winning throw of 92.72 metres moved him up to No 3 on the all-time list and was the longest throw by anyone in more than 14 years.
“It’s not good for Kenya,” Jepkemoi said about the suspended athletes. “I am not happy. If you know you are good and you are well, nothing can worry you. Me, I know I am clean.”
Yego defended the integrity of Kenyan athletes. He said: “We are so nice. I always believe we are good.”