Nairobi (AFP)

Japhter Rugut, head of the Kenya Anti-Doping Agency (Adak), believes that it has done a lot since its creation in 2016, especially for the education of athletes, but that it must "do even more" to ensure that the suspicion surrounding Kenya disappears.

Q: What were your priorities when creating the Adak?

A: "The biggest challenge at the time was education, because we were constantly hearing athletes who had been tested positive telling us that they did not know, so we started with that, developing programs to education targeting the athletes themselves. "

Q: What is anti-doping education about?

A: "The first thing is to try to instill values, especially when (the athletes) are still young and growing up." In terms of ethics, we want them to know that it's not It is important to understand that, as an athlete, it is not just a matter of choosing any drug at the counter (of a pharmacy) and use, it's about asking questions and getting information. "

Q: What are you doing to fight against the people who supply doping products?

A: "We have a partnership with the (Kenyan) Pharmacy and Poisons Committee, it's now up to this regulatory body (...) to control this, and in other countries you can not buy Anyway, the regulations are very strict, we want to make it the same thing in Kenya, with real traceability.These regulations exist, but I think that, maybe, previously, they were not applied. "

Q: How does the number of top athletes in Kenya make it difficult for Adak?

A: "This is our biggest challenge, in terms of numbers only, we are talking about thousands and thousands, covering everyone will be a challenge for us, we still have to develop our programs, recruit staff, maybe even receive more money from the government We try to be dissuasive because if people think they can run without being tested, they could be tempted (by doping). "

Q: Precisely, Parliament recently decided to reduce your budget. How will this affect your work?

A: "A young agency (like Adak), with a specific and uncommon mandate, should receive stronger support, we need to beef up our programs, not reduce them." We have not done enough in terms of We need to do even more. "

Q: What do you say to people who feel that the fight against drugs in Kenya is suffering from corruption?

A: "So far, we have no documented cases in which a member of our staff has been directly charged with corruption, we have awareness seminars for ourselves, just to make sure that (our employees) are able to to do their job without thinking of the personal benefit they would get if they accepted a bribe. "

Q: The International Athletics Federation (IAAF) still considers Kenya to be one of the highest risk countries. How to change that?

A: "It's simple: we need to do more testing, more education, and we need to have fewer positive cases.We are among the few countries where people are most likely to be tested (positive). It may be because of the population, when we have the athlete population that we have, the doping cases and the risks are higher than elsewhere.The message must pass, the education must be improved, we have to do a lot more tests and I think that in the end, in the short or medium term, we will be removed from the follow-up list. "

Q: Are you worried that Kenya, as in 2016, is threatened with the exclusion of the Olympics 2020?

A: "We think it will not be repeated, because we have programs in place now." The concern at the time was that there was no program. our ability to align a team, we believe that if we maintain our momentum between now and the middle of next year, we will be able to present a team specific to the Olympic Games, and we are confident that the integrity of the competition will be respected. "

Interviewed by Cyril Belaud

© 2019 AFP