Kenyan athletics coach, John Anzrah, has been sent home from the Rio Olympics after he posed as an athlete and gave a urine sample in a doping test, Kenya’s Olympics chief said on Thursday.
Anzrah is the second Kenyan official to be sent home from the Games over doping issues.
“We have sent (sprint coach) Anzrah back home. He presented himself as an athlete, gave the urine sample and even signed the documents. We cannot tolerate such behaviour,” Kip Keino, chairman of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK), said in a telephone interview from Rio.
Last week, Kenya sent their track and field manager, Michael Rotich, home from the Games, following allegations that he requested money to let undercover journalists, posing as athlete representatives, know when drugs testers would come calling. Rotich has denied the accusations.
Anzrah competed as a sprinter at the 1987 World Indoors and IAAF Championships.
According to sources, he was caught by doping control officers after they cottoned on to the fact that he was not the man in the photo of his ID badge. The athlete whose badge Anzrah was wearing was scheduled for a random doping test.
National Olympics Committee-Kenya have distanced themselves from Anzrah, claiming they didn’t know how he’d travelled to Brazil.
It’s the second scandal to hit Kenyan athletics in five days. On Sunday, the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya vowed it will investigate allegations made against athletics team manager Major Michael Rotich, who was also sent home from Brazil.
In a joint investigation, Germany’s ARD and The Sunday Times secretly filmed Rotich, a senior official with Athletics Kenya who marched with the team in Friday’s opening ceremony, offering a fake British running team a warning ahead of any drugs test.
The filming took place in the Rift Valley’s running capital Iten in January and February this year.
ARD reporter Hajo Seppelt posted on Twitter a statement about Rotich from Athletics Kenya announcing his immediate recall from the Games and promising he will face an investigation into “very serious allegations”.
Japhter Rugut, the chief executive of the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya, said that “ADAK will investigate, verify and authenticate this new allegation.”
