Kenya's Olympic chief warned Friday the east African track giants were in danger of missing Rio after politicians failed to pass a law criminalising sports doping ahead of a key deadline. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) gave Kenya until April 5 to tighten its anti-doping law and provide funding for a proposed Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK), after Nairobi missed an earlier February 14 deadline.
Kenyan lawmakers on Wednesday held the preliminary reading of a bill criminalising sports doping, but then went on recess, making it impossible to pass the bill into law by the Tuesday deadline. The bill is intended to save Kenyan athletes from an Olympics ban threatened by IAAF president Sebastian Coe. Kip Keino, the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) chairman, said he will appeal to WADA to give Kenya more time to complete the process. "Kenya is in danger of being locked out of the Olympics," Keino, himself a two-time Olympic 1,500 metre gold medallist, told AFP. "I am very disappointed with the attitude taken by the leaders. They don't get the magnitude of all this - they have badly let down the youth of this country."