Bribery claim by Kenyan in drugs storm
ASBeL KIPrOP, the former Olympic and three- times world 1,500m champion, has made the extraordinary claim that he was the victim of corrupt anti-doping officials after he failed a drugs test.
As Sportsmail revealed on Wednesday, the 28-year-old Kenyan has tested positive for a banned substance — believed to be the blood-boosting drug ePO — and will be hit with a lengthy ban should the IAAF’s athletics integrity unit conclude that he has committed an anti- doping rule violation.
Kiprop said he was ‘told for the first time that my sample turned positive on February 3, 2018’.
But he responded to this newspaper’s revelations yesterday by denying any wrongdoing and making a series of astonishing claims in a 1,400-word statement issued via an African journalist on social media.
Kiprop said his sample had been tampered with and that he was actually tipped off by Kenyan doping control officers that they would be visiting him for an out-ofcompetition test.
When they arrived, he said they extorted money from him.
He also said he was offered an IAAF ambassadorial role if he admitted he had cheated, despite that particular allegation making little sense.
Kiprop is a police officer in Kenya and insisted he is ‘the last person to commit such an atrocious un-sports like thing’.
In what would be a serious breach of regulations, Kiprop said that on November 26, 2017, he was ‘notified by way of telephone call from an anti- doping agent, Mr Simon Karugu ‘ Mburu’, to be available for doping test on November 27, 2017’ at his ‘disclosed whereabouts’ in Iten, Kenya.
The next morning, Kiprop claims, Karugu and Paul Scott visited his house and he gave a sample.
‘I am told ePO is put into the body using injection,’ he said. ‘The last time I had an injection was in 2014 when I was given a yellow fever vaccination before travelling to the Bahamas.’
Kiprop then claims the doping control officers asked him if he ‘could give them some money’, and he says he paid the money using an app on his mobile phone.
‘At that time I did not see the money as inducement or bribe for anything,’ he said. ‘I remain perplexed on how my innocent sample could turn positive on the only time when money was extorted from me. It is not beyond my suspicion that my sample turned positive because I might have remitted less money than I was expected to remit.’
Kiprop claims he was ‘extremely shocked’ when he was told his sample was positive.
He said: ‘I have been asked to admit that I doped so that I would be made an ambassador of IAAF on anti- doping. I have refused, as this is not only uuntrue but also a fraud. I do not need absolution on the allegations.’
yesterday on social media, the journalist through whom Kiprop issued his statement claimed thet AIu had confirmed there had been a breach of regulations by the doping control officers.
A source close to Kiprop also claimed the AIu had, in fact, rejected his claims.
Last year, Kenya’s Olympic marathon champion Jemima Sumgong was banned for four years after her claim that she was taking ePO for an ectopic pregnancy was rejected.