In total, 44 athletes, including athletes, footballers and swimmers, were sanctioned on Monday with suspensions ranging from one year to lifetime exclusion from their disciplines. In Kenya, cases of doping regularly make the headlines: around a hundred athletes have been sanctioned over the last five years.
Michael Saruni, a 29-year-old 800m specialist, was suspended for four years, notably for having asked another person resembling him to undergo a doping test in his place, during the Kenyan selections for the World Championships. world and the Commonwealth Games, in Nairobi, in June 2022.
This semi-finalist of the Tokyo Games denies having been summoned by those in charge of the tests. It had been provisionally suspended since January 2023. Last March, IAU director Brett Clothier warned during a visit to Kenya that the agency was intensifying its investigations and controls in the country.