{"id":35936,"date":"2026-10-08T06:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wada-chief-warns-kenya-must-be-clean-before-2029-world-athletics-championships\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T06:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:08:12","slug":"wada-chief-warns-kenya-must-be-clean-before-2029-world-athletics-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wada-chief-warns-kenya-must-be-clean-before-2029-world-athletics-championships\/","title":{"rendered":"Wada chief warns Kenya must be ‘clean before 2029 World Athletics Championships"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Kenya must demonstrate it can be a “clean” home of athletics if it is to retain its credibility as it prepares to stage the 2029 World Athletics Championships, according to Witold Banka, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), .<\/b><\/p>\n

Banka was speaking at the end of a three-day visit to Nairobi where he held talks with President William Ruto, government and sports officials, the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (Adak), athletes and representatives of law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Wada said the visit was intended to build on recent progress in Kenya’s anti-doping programme at a critical time following Nairobi’s selection to host the 2029 World Championships.<\/p>\n

“Kenya calls itself probably ‘home of champions’, but every home has to have a good host and has to be clean to be credible,” Banka told the BBC.<\/p>\n

“We absolutely need to instill the culture of clean sport.”<\/p>\n

Kenya was awarded the 2029 championships in September<\/a>, making it the first African country selected to host the event. <\/p>\n

The decision has increased scrutiny of its efforts to tackle a long-running doping problem. <\/p>\n

More than 140 Kenyan athletes, predominantly distance runners, have been suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit since 2017.<\/p>\n

The Polish former sports minister said he had received a clear commitment from Ruto’s government to a policy of zero tolerance towards doping, but warned promises would have to be matched by results.<\/p>\n

“Wada will monitor this situation and observe the dynamic. Action speaks louder than words,” he said.<\/p>\n

Banka said his discussions with Ruto also focused on strengthening an independent Adak, and ensuring it has sufficient government support.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Kenya must demonstrate it can be a “clean” home of athletics if it is to retain its credibility as it prepares to stage the 2029 World Athletics Championships, according to Witold Banka, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), . Banka was speaking at the end of a three-day visit to Nairobi where he held […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35938,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35936\/revisions\/35938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}