Two Italian sports agents detained by Kenyan police over doping

Kenyan police has detained two Italian sports agents for questioning as part of an investigation into alleged doping that almost denied the country a ticket to the Rio Olympic Games.

The interrogation began on Monday through to Tuesday after their arrest on Friday in Eldoret, western part of the country, and their passports were confiscated, police said.

The suspects, Dr. Gabriele Rosa and her son Federico have a sports management agency Rosa and Associati, which manages top Kenyan athletes including 1,500 meters triple world champion, Asbel Kiprop, and Rita Jeptoo, three times Boston Marathon winner who was suspended in 2015 for two years for doping.

“We have them with us so that we can continue with investigations,” Hamisi Masa, head of the anti-drug unit of the Criminal Investigation Service told the media.

The two Italians have been managing Kenyan athletes since the late 1980. Their reputation was tainted with suspicion since 2012, when an athlete under their management was suspended for doping.

Their arrest comes two weeks after the entry into force of a new anti-doping law in Kenya to sanction athletes convicted of doping and the person who provided or administered the banned substances.

This law was passed at the insistence of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), after Kenya had been threatened of exclusion in the next Olympic Games.

In 2015, Rosa Associati was one of the two foreign agencies which had been suspended in by the Kenyan Federation in connection with doping.

Forty Kenyan athletes were involved in doping scandals over the past three years.