Doping in Kenya, the great paradox of the paradise of the distance race

Philemon Kacheran at the Twente Airport Marathon in 2021. Dean Mouhtaropoulos (Getty Images)

The Kenyan athletics federation says it no longer makes sense to organize the annual gala to honor its best athletes.

Overall, they explain, in a few months those who we reward will end up being disqualified for doping.

This is how you breathe in the heights of Kenya, the lung of the world marathon.

There is hardly a week in which the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), the independent anti-doping agency in athletics, does not report that one or more Kenyan marathoners have tested positive.

Marius Kipserem, Diana Kipyokei, Betty Wilson Lempus, Ibrahim Mukunga, Kenneth Kiprop Renju, Mark Kangongo or Philemon Kacheran are some of the names published in recent months.

Kipserem, winner of the Rotterdam marathon in 2016 and 2019, tested positive for EPO, a product that few risk using anymore.

Just like Diana Kipyokei, winner of the Boston Marathon in 2021, for the corticosteroid triamcinolone.

For his victory, he received $150,000.

Kacheran, suspended for three years for testosterone, is one of Eliud Kipchoge's best friends, with whom he trains in Kaptagat.

It is the fourth, out of more than 50, hare that helped Kipchoge to run in less than two hours in the Ineos marathon in 2019.

There is a mythical Kenya, its Rift Valley, and dozens of websites and commercial brochures not very different from those that come to couples from paradisiacal places for their honeymoons, which offer those who dream of being great marathon runners the true experience mystical at 2,000 meters of altitude, where the blood is enriched by the lack of oxygen, sunrises in the savannah, training on red clay paths between green fields and cow mooing, life as an athletic ascetic.

A late afternoon tea and at eight in bed.

In Iten, in Eldoret or in Kaptagat, those fields that European or American or Japanese tourists visit to spend a couple of weeks, live the ascetic life of the long-distance runner and accumulate experiences, thousands of Kenyan athletes train hard to live from athletics .

They are created, organized and directed by managers and agents, mostly Europeans —Gianni Demadonna, Federico Rosa, Jos Hermens...—, who prepare them to compete all year round all over the world.

"They are true hotels with training areas," explains Spanish manager Juan Pedro Pineda.

“They have all the services.

They are a luxury in such a poor country.”

Running is your job.

Super-specialized workforce for the global

the asphalt race: thousands of tests of all kinds of distance, with hundreds of thousands of popular runners spending shoes at 200 euros a pair.

They are good at it.

The best.

In quality (the world record holder, Eliud Kipchoge, 2h 1m 9s, is Kenyan) and in quantity: of the 5,517 athletes who have ever lost 2h 16m 30s in a marathon, 1,523 are Kenyans, and 583 Ethiopians, the residents of the Valley of the Rift that gave life to the first myth of the marathon, Abebe Bikila.

There are only 83 Spaniards on that list. Among the first 200, those who have lost 2h 6m, there is no national, and there are 97 Kenyans and 72 Ethiopians.

The world record holder, Brigid Kosgei (2h 14m 4s), is Kenyan, and of the 1,200 women who have lost 2h 30m in history, 203 are Kenyan and 260 Ethiopian.

Spanish?

12, and none has gone below 2h 26m.

The national record, 2h 26m 51s, is ranked 570th on the world list.

Kenyan marathoners do not seek sporting glory, they do not pursue the Olympic dream.

Not everyone is Kipchoge, marathon messiah and double Olympic champion.

Nor do they aspire to be.

They train, they travel to any city in the world, they compete, they return, they train... They save, they feed their family.

The Swedish physiologist Bengt Saltin was the first who wanted to find the secret of its quality.

He talked about life at altitude, how running was the only way to move, how evolution had made them more efficient, how their legs were practically devoid of calves, muscles that gave them weight and not speed... The geneticist Blanca Bermejo advances other possibilities.

"There is probably a link with the intestinal microbiota, the so-called intestinal flora, specifically the bacteria

and sports performance”, explains the specialist.

"In the feces of marathon runners there is an increase in this bacterium that metabolizes lactate."

Lactate is the residue from the burning of glycogen to produce energy, and its rise ends up paralyzing the muscle.

Genetically, they have the capacity to run tirelessly at 20 kilometers per hour, at rates of three minutes per kilometer, for marathons (42,195 kilometers) in 2h 7m.

“But the brands have improved so much in the last two years, either because of the atomic shoes or for whatever reason, that with those times you are no longer going anywhere,” says Miguel Mostaza, a Spanish manager who hires athletes for the big marathons.

“With 2h 5m, they can aspire to something.

2h 6m is no longer anything at the maximum level.

2h 8m is already third level.

To make some money they need to be way below.

And commercial brands put a lot of pressure to always improve records.

A victory in a normal marathon is around 40,000 euros... Building a house in Kenya is 6,000 euros... It's a devilish dynamic: to win the same amount you have to run more.

And the body has a limit.

It is an economy, a world, in which anti-doping controls are nothing more than reflections of the sports world, an alien system, which they do not understand, and which breaks them.

"The managers have nothing to do with it, although from time to time the Kenyan authorities point the finger at them," adds Pineda.

“Everything is individual initiative, a minority.

If they spoke up and denounced the doctors who dope them, perhaps they would start to change things.

They live by running marathons.

It's a job, not a sport.

They're not looking for medals."

Marc Roig, a physiotherapist in Kaptagat, at the Kipchoge training camp, is also part of the organization of the Valencia marathon, in which the Ethiopian Letesenbet Gidey will try to break the world record on December 4.

Speak loud and clear.

He talks about pain and zero tolerance.

“Doping is a sporting catastrophe, because we no longer know who the real champions are, and a disaster for road races because it drives away sponsors.

In the Valencia Marathon and Half Marathon there is zero tolerance, because we have been deceived by some athletes”, says Roig.

“So, since 2018, we no longer invite or pay fixed runners who have been definitively sanctioned for doping, even if they have served their sanction.

They can go to other races, but not to ours, for the same reason that a politician convicted of corruption,

no matter how long he has served his sentence, he should not have a chance to win the election again.

Also, as we know that one of the problems of doping is the lack of means, in 2018 we voluntarily contributed with the AIU with 50,000 dollars to help in surprise controls”.

Kenya, the great paradox.

The marathon mine, and the danger.

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