Michael Rotich, Kenya’s athletics coach, who was sent home from the 2016 Olympics, was banned for 10 years on Wednesday.
Rotich was sanctioned for seeking a bribe of $12,000 to help athletes beat doping tests. The tracks coach was banned by the IAAF ethics board, following a three-year investigation prompted by an undercover expose’ by British newspaper, The Sunday Times.
He was also ordered to pay a $5, 000 fine and $14,000 in procedural costs.
In the video footage released by the newspaper during the Rio de Janeiro Games, Rotich asked undercover reporters for the money to help a group of British runners dope with EPO and get away with it.
The senior track official in his country told the reporters he would give them advance notice of any drug tests.
”When I have interest, I will be able to find ways and means of doing that,” Rotich told the reporters.
The undercover reporters disguised as coach and manager of an unreal group of athletes and no doping took place.
But the video was released following a series of Kenyan doping and corruption scandals, involving high-profile athletes and senior officials.
He was filed alongside another Kenyan man identified as Joseph Mwangi, who said he could provide the banned blood-boosting substance EPO to the athletes once they arrive the country.
The three indicting videos were recorded in January and February 2016.
In the videos, he boasted that he could use his influence in the high-altitude training region in Kenya’s Rift Valley, to find out if and when doping control officers were planning to test the visiting British athletes.
Rotich said he was confident the testers would comply and he could give the British athletes 12 hours’ notice of any tests, allowing them to try to flush any banned substances out of their systems.
In his case, Rotich claimed he was only gathering information on corruption to take to authorities; his defense was rejected by the three-member ethics panel.
Kiprop later admitted that he had been given advance notice of a doping test in Kenya in late 2017.
