Doping, gender-based violence (GBV), and age cheating dominated Thursday’s Parliamentary Committee on Sports and Culture meeting with Athletics Kenya (AK) officials at Bunge Tower.
While most efforts have been put in the fight against doping, it has emerged that GBV and age cheating are slowly but surely becoming a menace in the most successful sport in the country.
AK president Lt Gen (Rtd) Jackson Tuwei expressed his frustrations to the Committee, chaired by Webuye West MP Dan Wanyama, over the lack of certified facilities for athletes to use ahead of the World Championships in Tokyo on September 13-21, 2025.
“We are trying our level best to make sure the athletes are well taken care of, and they are well remunerated. But the government should also help us by at least reducing taxes on athletes’ equipment. At the moment, we are trying to qualify the athletes for the World Championships, but both Kasarani and Nyayo stadiums are closed for renovation. Those are the only two certified facilities in Kenya, yet we have to qualify the athletes before the deadline,” said Tuwei.
According to AK Executive Member and Youth Director Barnaba Korir, the federation in collaboration with World Athletics has so far banned 35 athletes.
“Age cheating has become a very big issue. There is a deliberate action by certain individuals on the ground to interfere with the dates of birth of some of our athletes. We have already suspended 35 athletes, but the investigation is still going on between AK and World Athletics,” said Korir who is contesting for NOC-K vice president seat.
“There’s a perception that you cannot run without doing something. That’s where the problem is. We have come up with some new measures which include registering the athletes’ personnel (coaches and technical officials). This registration identifies every coach who’s working with an athlete. We also have regulations to ensure that anybody who is going to handle an athlete has to be vetted before getting either a licence or registration certificate so that the authorities know who they are. The full implementation of this programme will be done by June this year. This process will help us in the fight against doping.”
Though challenging, AK Safeguarding Committee chairperson Elizabeth Keitanny reiterated their commitment to fighting both GBV and age cheating.
“It is quite challenging, and we are currently handling 13 serious cases. We need security in handling these cases. For example, there is a young athlete who got married to a coach, but as a safeguarding team, we managed to save the girl. There is also one athlete who was conned Sh11 million by a male partner, and as AK we have supported this athlete to get her a lawyer. We have many young-married athletes who have been conned by some coaches not affiliated to AK,” Keitanny said.
“In another incident, a man had married a young girl, and his son also married another young girl. So, we had to safeguard one of the athletes from the marriage. We also have a financial issue, and we have taken some of the coaches to court over it. There’s one coach who took Sh332,000 from an athlete; the case is going on. As a federation, we are working hand in hand with the government to ensure this issue of GBV is eradicated.”
AK further revealed that they have 600 registered coaches across the country, with 100 of them being women. The federation is currently training 48 more women coaches.
