Sebastian Coe has welcomed improvement in Kenya's anti-doping effort, but the approach to Nairobi's championships will be judged by sustained testing, credible investigations and fair treatment of athletes.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has said Kenya is making progress in its fight against doping, while making clear that the task is not finished. His October 14 comments in Nairobi place the issue alongside preparations for the city’s 2029 World Athletics Championships.
Reuters reported that Coe welcomed improvements ahead of the first senior world championships to be held in Africa. The assessment is an important signal from the sport’s leadership, but it is not a finding that every problem has been resolved or a guarantee about future cases.
For the host country, the challenge is to make progress durable. A major championship creates a deadline and international attention. An effective integrity system has to work in the less visible periods between major events, when athletes are training, organisations are making decisions and evidence may be more difficult to obtain.
Testing has to extend beyond the competition
The Athletics Integrity Unit’s explanation of doping control distinguishes testing at competitions from no-notice testing of athletes in the registered testing pool outside competition. It also describes the athlete biological passport as part of its detection and deterrence work. These are features of the sport’s wider system, not evidence of a particular Kenyan athlete’s conduct.
The distinction helps explain why a successful championship testing programme would not be sufficient on its own. Competition is only one point in an athlete’s season. A credible framework must also support work outside the stadium and ensure that the information collected can be followed through consistently.
There is no simple relationship between the number of tests and confidence in the system. More testing can expand coverage, but the value of a programme also depends on how it is organised, the quality of the procedures and the handling of results. A large number without those conditions can create an appearance of activity while leaving important questions unanswered.
Results require context, not a national stereotype
The AIU’s published testing overview records 13,428 samples worldwide in 2024, including 8,440 outside competition. Those are historical global figures, not Kenya’s current testing totals. They illustrate the scale and international character of the work, but cannot establish whether any one national programme is now adequate.
The same caution applies to sanctions statistics. A rise in detected cases can reflect a worsening problem, stronger detection or both. A fall can indicate improvement, reduced activity or changes in the population being tested. Without context, the direction of the number does not settle the question of effectiveness.
It would be equally wrong to treat a country’s anti-doping difficulties as evidence against every athlete from that country. Individual responsibility must be established through evidence and the applicable process. Clean competitors have a direct interest in strong enforcement precisely because misconduct by others can damage both fair competition and public confidence.
Fair procedure is part of strong enforcement
An integrity system needs to distinguish an allegation, a provisional measure and a final decision. Collapsing those stages into a single public judgment can harm athletes and weaken confidence in the process. Clear explanations of the status of a case make scrutiny more informed without requiring an organisation to disclose evidence prematurely.
Athletes also need practical access to information about their obligations. Rules are less effective when the people subject to them cannot understand the procedures or know where to ask questions. Education is not a replacement for testing, but it can reduce avoidable mistakes and make it harder for misleading advice to go unchallenged.
The AIU’s guidance places responsibility on athletes for what is in their bodies and explains the existence of therapeutic-use exemptions. That creates a need for accurate advice and properly documented processes, rather than assumptions about medication or informal assurances from people around a competitor. The point is procedural clarity, not a suggestion that legitimate treatment should be avoided.
The host legacy should outlast the closing ceremony
Nairobi’s championships offer an opportunity to connect event preparation with stronger institutions. Facilities and competition operations will be visible to spectators; the less visible legacy would be a system able to continue testing, investigating and explaining its decisions after the event has moved elsewhere.
That requires continuity rather than a short campaign designed around a date. Responsibilities must remain clear when personnel change, evidence must be handled consistently and resources must support work that cannot always be completed within a convenient publicity cycle. These are standards for judging progress, not claims that any specific commitment has already been fulfilled.
Coe’s October 14 assessment provides encouragement, not an endpoint. Kenya’s next test is whether the improvement can be sustained through the approach to 2029 and beyond it. The strongest legacy would be one in which athletes can compete with greater confidence in their rivals and the public can understand why the results deserve to be trusted.
