Ruth Chepngetich set the women's marathon world record of 2:09:57 at the 2024 Chicago Marathon. Photo: *Guardian*

"Where there's smoke, there's fire," a 13th-century French proverb, resonates in Kenya, where the smoke of doping hangs heavy over the athletics world. Nearly 400 Kenyan athletes have been suspended in the past decade, and the trend shows no sign of abating.

Behind Kenya's doping crisis lies a struggle for survival. Experts believe the issue stems from economic pressure and the desire to escape poverty. In a developing nation, many young Kenyans see their athletic abilities as their only ticket to a better life, where a championship can bring in thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of USD.

In this context, many are willing to risk everything for a chance at upward mobility, believing that since their competitors are doping, they must also cheat to stay competitive.

Worryingly, banned performance-enhancing drugs are readily available in Kenya. In an undercover investigation, German journalist Hajo Seppelt filmed himself purchasing banned substances at a pharmacy in Nairobi, Kenya's capital. He simply walked into a small shop, no prescription or paperwork required.

However, the Kenyan doping scandal cannot be solely blamed on the athletes. It's a confluence of poverty, the yearning for a better life, easy access to banned substances, permissive coaches and sports doctors, and even organizers eager to attract elite Kenyan runners to their events for prestige.

Ruth Chepngetich (left) and her agent Frederico Rosa.

Within this network, agents play a crucial role in guiding athletes' careers and medical access. Frederico Rosa's name surfaces frequently. Frederico and his father, Gabriele Rosa, run the agency Rosa & Associati, which has managed over 30 world-class athletes, predominantly from Africa.

Whenever a Kenyan athlete achieves a remarkable feat or unexpectedly tests positive for banned substances, the aforementioned names reappear. The latest case involves Chepngetich, provisionally suspended after testing positive for hydrochlorothiazide (HTCZ), a banned diuretic often used to mask performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). This scandal comes just six months after she set a record-breaking marathon time of 2:09:57, shattering the previous mark of 2:11:53 set by Tigist Assefa (Ethiopia) at the 2023 Berlin Marathon.

Is this a coincidence, or is Rosa a key link in a sophisticated doping system? "No court has proven his complicity, but where there's smoke, there's fire," *Athletics Illustrated* commented.

In 2016, Kenyan police arrested and formally investigated Frederico. He was suspected of "damaging the careers" of athletes by facilitating the use of banned substances.

The court allowed police to detain Rosa for three days for investigation, despite objections from his defense team. During this time, he attended a preliminary hearing but faced no criminal charges due to lack of concrete evidence.

Concurrently, Italian coach Claudio Berardelli, who had worked with the Rosas and coached Jeptoo, was also arrested in Eldoret, Kenya's renowned highland town, for questioning.

Jeptoo won the 2014 Boston Marathon in record time, but the result was voided due to doping. Photo: *Boston Globe*

During the peak of the Kenyan doping investigations, numerous athletes represented by Rosa & Associati were banned from competition. Most notably, Rita Jeptoo, a three-time Boston Marathon champion and two-time Chicago Marathon winner, tested positive for the blood-boosting drug EPO in a 2014 out-of-competition test in Kenya. This led to a two-year ban, later extended due to the severity of the offense, and the revocation of her titles that year.

Mathew Kisorio, a promising Kenyan middle- and long-distance runner, was also suspended after testing positive for doping. Kisorio later admitted using banned substances and criticized Kenya's sports medicine system, where he claimed "banned drugs are prescribed like vitamins."

Agatha Jeruto's subsequent ban further lengthened the list of athletes under Rosa's management who had fallen from grace. While not as prominent as Jeptoo, Jeruto's case highlighted that the issue extended beyond star athletes and permeated the entire athlete management system.

In 4/2015, Athletics Kenya suspended Rosa & Associati for six months pending a doping investigation. However, by the end of the year, both Rosa and the agency were cleared by World Athletics and Athletics Kenya due to insufficient evidence.

Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) warned of "serious allegations" of doping in Kenya and called for increased athlete testing across all sports. Notably, in 2018, the Kenyan government began allocating 5 million USD annually to bolster doping control. Consequently, the number of athletes caught doping surged, illustrating the pervasiveness of the problem. However, when government funding was cut in 2024, positive cases dropped sharply.

Against this backdrop, Beatrice Chebet, also represented by Rosa & Associati, is under intense scrutiny. The Kenyan runner recently became the first woman to run the 5,000m in under 14 minutes, clocking 13:58.06 at the 2025 Prefontaine Classic/Eugene Diamond League.

Earlier this year, Chebet made history as the first woman to run 5km under 14 minutes, with a time of 13:54 at the Cursa dels Nassos in Barcelona. She also holds the women-only 5,000m road race record of 14:13, set in Barcelona in 2023, and won the 2024 Olympic title in 14:28.

"A red flag will appear if Chebet starts skipping registered competitions or out-of-competition doping tests," *Athletics Illustrated* noted. "While there's no concrete evidence of doping, every time she races, the Pebax foam on her shoes seems to smoke—a metaphor for her extraordinary speed. And as the old adage goes: where there's smoke, there's fire."

Hong Duy (*Athletics Illustrated*)