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

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

Around 140 Kenyan athletes have been suspended, including a positive test 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”.

Kenya has 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 United States, taking home 11 medals: seven gold, two silver and two bronze.

Yet Kenya’s triumph was undermined by the fact that dozens of Kenyan athletes, mainly long-distance runners, 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 admitting 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 that having spoken with Kenya’s previous and current leader, integrity in Kenyan athletics is seen as a “key national imperative” and “should be in the best shape possible”.

The Briton acknowledged that although 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 1,500 metres, 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 Athletics Integrity Unit’s point of view is more intense, it’s more extensive, and it’s much more intelligence-based led than it was under the old system.” AFP, REUTERS