Kenyan runners are setting the pace of the world, haunted by a doping crisis

Several factors make Kenya’s doping crisis different from others, said Clothier, of the integrity unit. These include running’s place as an escape from poverty in Kenya, one of the poorest countries in the world; the unparalleled depth of the country’s professional runners; and the historic lack of out-of-competition drug testing for elite athletes competing below the level of the Olympics, world championships and major marathons in Boston, New York, Chicago, Berlin, London and Tokyo.

Thousands of Kenyans make a living from running, with prize money and entry fees for a road race such as a 10km, half marathon or summit marathon ranging from a few thousand dollars to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. This kind of money could be “life-changing and community-changing” in Kenya, Clothier said, offering the opportunity to buy a farm or a hotel, or to open a school in a country where annual gross domestic product per capita of the population is approximately $2,100. , according to the World Bank.

“This is our profession,” said Kipyegon, the women’s Olympic champion. “We have nowhere else to go, no offices to go to” to make a decent living.

The pressure to climb the Kenyan success pyramid, along with inadequate drug screening of professional athletes who are not of Olympic caliber, has created a “wild west” environment for doping, Clothier said, in which athletes and their enablers “take much greater risks ‘. than elsewhere.”

Kenya’s increased financial commitment to the fight against doping is encouraging, Clothier says, although more athletes are now certain to be arrested as the country’s drug testers cast a wider net. It will be a “long, long road” to solve the problem, he said. But Kenyan running has no choice but to follow it wherever it leads.

“It’s a bit now or never,” he said.