World champion Julius Yego insisted Kenyan athletes could still be trusted to win clean after he landed javelin gold on the day that two of his team-mates became the first competitors to fail drugs tests at the World Championships in Beijing.
Joyce Zakary and Koki Manunga accepted provisional suspensions after returning positive tests before the start of the championships, the International Association of Athletics Federations announced.
The pair were target-tested at their hotel by the IAAF, which came under fire in the build-up to the championships amid accusations it has not done enough to combat doping.
Zakary, whose positive test was for a sample provided last Friday, set a new Kenyan record of 50.71 seconds in the heats of the 400 metres, but the 29-year-old did not start Tuesday’s semi-final.
Manunga’s positive sample was from the day before. The 21-year-old finished second last in her 400m hurdles heat on Sunday.
The positive tests will take the shine off what has been an impressive championships for Kenya so far. They topped the medal table after the opening five days of competition with 11 medals, including six golds.
Kenya have not just racked up medals over long and middle distance on the track, though, their traditional areas of strength. Yego’s gold at the Bird’s Nest stadium on Wednesday came a day after Nicholas Bett raced to the 400m hurdles title.
Yego’s winning throw of 92.72 metres was the longest distance in 14 years and one only bettered by two other athletes in history, Czech Jan Zelezny and Finland’s Aki Parviainen.
Athletics in Kenya has come under close scrutiny following a spate of positive tests from their athletes over the past few years.
On the news two of his compatriots had failed tests, Yego said: “I can’t dwell on that, it’s a shame.
“I always believe you can win clean. In sport you win clean.”
Yego’s gold was followed by a second of the night for Kenya, won by Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkemoi in the 3,000m steeplechase.
“I know I am clean,” she said.
“(But) it’s not good for Kenya, I am not happy.”
Steve Cram believes Kenyan athletes are being duped by unscrupulous coaches.
He said on the BBC: “The cultural thing’s really important. I go to Kenya for three or four weeks every year in January with our athletes and everybody wants to escape by becoming an athlete and there are a lot of people duping young athletes.
“There’s been talk about European managers and coaches, but there are a lot of people in Kenya who are prepared to dupe their own people, if you take this or take that.
“It’s about money. They are earning money from innocent people who think they can take something and become a champion athlete.
“They look at the David Rudishas of this world and it’s a bit like kids in Britain wanting to be great footballers. Athletics is the sport in Kenya and they’re prepared to do whatever it takes, sadly.
“They need educating and we need to attack it as a cultural level as well as with testing.”
The sight of doping rearing its ugly head again is an unwelcome one for athletics.
The sport’s credibility has taken a battering following damaging allegations, fiercely denied by the IAAF, that the world governing body turned a blind eye to suspicious blood test results from hundreds of athletes.
In the lead-up to the championships, the IAAF also announced that 28 athletes had been suspended over historic doping offences.
The fight against doping is set to be a key issue which will help define incoming IAAF president Lord Coe’s time in charge of the organisation. He has promised to set up an independent anti-doping agency for athletics.