Russia, Kenya face Olympic threat after new revelations

Kenya was plunged into crisis after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) ruled at a meeting in Montreal that the African nation’s drug-testing body had breached strict international rules.

The WADA declaration of non-compliance places a question mark against the participation of Kenyan athletes in Rio.

Rene Bouchard, Chairman of WADA’s compliance review committee (CRC), said Kenya’s drug testing agency was declared “non-compliant with immediate effect.”

Russia’s anti-doping agency was declared non-compliant last year after a WADA independent committee uncovered evidence of a state-sponsored doping program which led to Russia’s suspension from international athletics.

Russian track and field athletes will be banned from Rio unless the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) lifts its suspension next month.

But even as WADA held its board meeting in Montreal, a fresh round of revelations about drugs at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi erupted in the New York Times. The Times report quoted the former head of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory as saying that dozens of Russian athletes, including 15 medalists, were involved in a successful plot to evade drug-testers.