Teenager Angela Ndungwa Munguti is the latest Kenyan athlete to fail a drug test and face a doping ban.
The 17-year-old African Youth Games 800 metres silver medallist tested positive for Norandrosterone, a metabolite of anabolic steroid nandrolone, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced on Twitter.Munguti, whose personal best for the 800m is a relatively modest 2min 06.21sec, is represented by Italian agent Gianni Demadonna, a former distinguished distance runner who finished second in the 1987 New York City Marathon.
She is the second African teenager in less than a month to be charged with doping by the AIU.
Ethiopia’s African Games 10,000m champion Berehanu Tsegu has been provisionally suspended by the AIU after testing positive for the blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO).
Ethiopia’s African Games 10,000m champion Berehanu Tsegu has been provisionally suspended by the AIU after testing positive for the blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO).
Banned athletes include Jemima Sumgong, winner of Kenya’s first Olympic gold medal in the women’s marathon when she crossed the line first at Rio 2016, who tested positive for EPO.
Last year, three-time world champion and Olympic 1,500m gold medallist Asbel Kiprop tested positive for EPO and was also banned.
Between 2004 and August 2018, 138 Kenyan athletes tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, according to a World Anti-Doping Agency report published in September 2018.
The report concluded that anabolic steroid nandrolone, corticosteroids and EPO were the substances most used by Kenyan athletes.
Earlier this year, on the eve of the IAAF World Championships here, German broadcaster ZDF had footage which allegedly showed top male and female athletes being injected with EPO in pharmacies in the African country.
There were also claims from a doctor that Kenyan athletes and officials have found a way to sidestep testing methods.
International Association of Athletics Federations President Sebastian Coe promised the world governing body would investigate the claims.