More than 40 of Kenya’s leading athletes "have been subjected to out-of-competition blood tests in their home country for the first time after a team of overseas drug-testers paid an unannounced visit to the main high-altitude training region in the Rift Valley," according to Simon Hart of the London TELEGRAPH.
The anti-doping officials "were sent into Kenya" by the Int'l Association of Athletics Federations following allegations in a German TV documentary last year that doctors "were supplying athletes with performance-enhancing drugs in exchange for a percentage of their earnings." The claims "were denied by Athletics Kenya but prompted calls by the World Anti-Doping Agency for an investigation by the Kenyan authorities." The samples will "now be used to update the athletes’ biological passports by comparing them against in-competition blood samples they have previously provided on the athletics circuit." Any spikes or abnormalities in the profile may be evidence of a doping violation, though the results "will not be known for at least another two months" (TELEGRAPH, 1/28).
