ADAK raids Harambee Stars’ camp
Harambee Stars head coach Engin Firat was left a furious man after the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) raided the national team’s camp late on Tuesday night to test players for any use of prohibited drugs.
The anti-doping team visited Harambee Stars, who are preparing for a Four-Nations tournament in Lilongwe, Malawi, at their hotel, Holiday Inn, situated at Two Rivers Mall, where the entire squad of 24 players was tested and samples taken for analysis.
However, the move by the agency irked Firat, who questioned the timing, which came when the players were supposed to be recovering after a gruelling training session the same evening.
Firat further wondered why the Anti-doping team could not have waited to pick the samples after their training session on Wednesday morning, which he said they were forced to cancel, owing to the raid by ADAK that saw the team players go to bed past 12.30am.
“They walked into our hotel at 8pm (without any prior communication) when the players had already gone to sleep and pdemanded to take samples, at first I thought of resisting because I felt the timing was not good, they had walked in at a time when the players were exhausted from training and needed recovery, I wonder why they did not do it in the morning,” Firat told People Sports.
He added: “I also don’t understand why they insisted in testing all the 24 players with the exercise stretching until 12am and yet in most cases a sample of two or three players is the one that is always picked for testing randomly.”
The sample collection personnel collected urine and dried bloodspot samples (DBS) from the players.
ADAK’s head of legal Bildad Rogoncho, however, defended the exercise saying it was done as per the laws of the doping programme.
“The Anti-doping program dictates through the world anti-doping code, that sample collections can be conducted by any organization that has got the testing authority and in this case ADAK has got the testing authority,” Rogobcho told People Sports.
“The code provides that the sample collection can be conducted at any given time from anyone, good practice has always had it that we do our sample collection from five in the morning to 11pm in the night, regarding the issue touching on Harambee Stars, ADAK has got express authority to conduct sample collection at any given time.”
Rogoncho continued: “It’s important to do sample collection rather than allowing our national team or local players to represent our country in an international event and when their samples are collected during that particular event they turn positive for prohibited substances, that will be very shameful for the country, so its important that ADAK undertakes the exercise and it’s our choice to test a sample of the population or the entire population.”
On why ADAC raided the team’s camp without prior notice, Rogobcho explained: “Unfortunately and which is the law, we do not give advance notice to anyone, who is supposed to give their samples in this case we appreciate the fact that Harambee Stars is in camp and they have very few days before their first match and I’m sure that the coach has laid out a schedule that must be adhered to that must be met so that he can achieve the highest quality or output from players he has under his team.”
“We appreciate that the Anti-doping program may sometimes disrupt that schedule but that is what the law provides. We must do sample collection on the athletes before they go out of the country.”
During the tournament in Malawi, Kenya will open their FIFA window assignment on Saturday against Malawi at Bingu National Stadium at 1700 hours after Zambia have played Zimbabwe at the same venue, kicking off at 1400 hours.
Winners of the two matches will face off on March 26 while the losers will play each other in the early kickoff on the same day. Malawi is hosting the Four Nations tournament as part of allowing the participating teams to prepare for the June back-to-back FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
