Kenya hosting 2029 World Athletics Championships will help its fight against doping: Coe

NAIROBI – Kenya hosting the 2029 World Athletics Championships will help combat the endemic doping problem among its athletes, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said during a visit to Nairobi on Oct 14.

The East African nation is a global athletics powerhouse, particularly in middle- and long-distance running, but has seen a surge in doping cases in recent years.

Around 140 Kenyan athletes have been suspended, including one whose positive test was announced as recently as Oct 13 by monitoring body Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU).

“The championships will help us in that quest” for a cleaner Kenyan athletics scene, Coe told AFP on the sidelines of a press conference in Nairobi.

“Is there more work to be done? Yes. Will these championships lend more focus to that? Absolutely,” he said.

The AIU is “very clear in their reports to me that progress is being made” in Kenya, he said, adding the country had come a “long way”.

On Sept 15, Nairobi won the right to host the biennial world championships in Africa for the first time.

At the 2025 edition in Tokyo, Kenya finished second overall behind the US, taking home 11 medals: seven golds, two silvers and two bronzes.

Yet Kenya’s reputation has been undermined by the fact that dozens of its athletes have been suspended for doping since 2017, more than any other nation.

Marathon world record holder Ruth Chepngetich was handed a three-year ban by the AIU in October 2025 after she admitted to doping.

Earlier that year, Benard Kibet, who finished fifth in the 10,000m at the Paris Olympics, was also suspended by the AIU.

In March, Albert Korir, who won the New York Marathon in 2021, was handed a five-year ban after testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing drug.

Athletics is a national sport in Kenya – where unemployment remains high and well-paid jobs scarce – and is viewed by many as a way out of poverty.

Coe said after speaking to Kenya’s previous and current leaders that integrity in Kenyan athletics is seen as a “key national imperative” and “should be in the best shape possible”.

The Briton acknowledged that although the Kenyan authorities had improved resources to fight doping, “we’ll never be in a perfect world”.

“But we’re significantly further ahead than we were when we started out on this journey in 2015.”

Coe, a two-time Olympic champion in the 1,500m, added: “One of the first things I did when I became president of World Athletics 11 years ago was the reform of the sport. And sitting at the epicentre of those reforms was, of course, the creation of the Athletics Integrity Unit.

“The testing from the AIU’s point of view is more intense, it’s more extensive and it’s much more intelligence-led than it was under the old system.” AFP, REUTERS