ZCZC
BSP-17
ATHLETICS-KEN-DOPING-CORRUPTION-ROTICH
Former Kenya athletics chief banned 10 years for corruption
PARIS, May 22, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Kenya’s former athletics team manager
Michael Rotich has been banned for 10 years for agreeing to provide advance
notice to athletes of doping tests in exchange for money, the IAAF announced
Wednesday.
Rotich was exposed by two undercover journalists from the Sunday Times in
an article published in August 2016 and was sent home in disgrace from the
Olympic Games in Rio which were under way at the time.
He was also provisionally banned by the IAAF from his coaching job.
In a statement Wednesday an IAAF’s Ethics Board panel said Rotich had
offered to warn athletes of impending tests so they could flush doping
substances from their system in order to circumvent tests.
He also offered to provide excuses which athletes could use to avoid being
penalised for missing tests.
“The panel reiterates that the charges which it has found to be
established are serious,” the statement said.
“The conduct of Major Rotich was dishonest and corrupt. He sought to
undermine anti-doping controls and to obtain a personal financial benefit in
doing so.”
The two Sunday Times journalists posing as the sports manager and coach of
a fictional British athletics team met Rotich three times in early 2016,
according to the Ethics panel.
They were promised advance warning of doping tests in return for o10,000
($12,600, 11,300 euros).
The statement said that it had found no evidence that Rotich did in fact
provide advance notice of doping tests nor that he had ever received
payments.
“However the panel has found that Major Rotich acted corruptly and in
deliberate violation of core principles of the Code (of Ethics), it said.
BSS/AFP/RY/1748 hrs