The UK anti-doping agency has sent investigators to Kenya to probe allegations that four British athletes were using the banned blood-booster EPO in a well-known high-altitude training region, claims that could increase the scope of the problem in the East African nation and show foreign runners are also doping there.
The allegations made in a joint sting operation by German broadcaster ARD and British newspaper The Sunday Times, and published late Saturday and early Sunday, were “of grave concern and of significant interest,” UKAD chief executive Nicole Sapstead said.
“We have opened an investigation and are taking the necessary steps to corroborate the evidence and investigate it further,” she said in a statement . “I can confirm that this evidence is being treated with the utmost importance and urgency, and two members of UKAD staff are currently in Kenya pursuing a number of lines of enquiry.”
The four British athletes accused of doping with EPO in western Kenya were not named, although The Sunday Times said it knew the identity of at least one of them, and said that the athlete was already under suspicion for doping.
Kenya and its runners have been under severe scrutiny over the last four years because of a surge in doping cases. Kenya’s high-altitude training camps are popular with top distance runners from across the world, raising concerns that foreign athletes could also take advantage of the area’s poor doping controls.