The Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) has acknowledged the critical role of the media in promoting clean sport and integrity in athletics, urging journalists to use their platforms to protect athletes from doping.
Speaking on behalf of ADAK Ag. Chief Executive Officer Ms. Peninah Wahome, Dr. Martin Sisa Yauma told members of the Sports Journalists Association of Kenya (SJAK) during the 2026 SJAK Annual General Meeting at Best Western Meridian Hotel on Friday that the media is a key partner in safeguarding Kenyan sport.
“Thank you for the honour of standing before the men and women whose pens, cameras and microphones shape how Kenya sees itself in the arena of sport. You are not bystanders in this fight. You are, whether you have fully claimed it yet or not, one of the last lines of defence between our athletes and the forces that would corrupt them,” Dr. Yauma said.
He noted that while athletes are often praised for physical preparation, many are “dangerously unprepared” to resist pressures that lead to doping.
“Is the athlete prepared to face a coach who whispers that ‘everyone is doing it’? Is she prepared to walk away from a supplement of unknown origin handed to her by a well-meaning but poorly informed manager? Too many of our athletes arrive at the start line superbly conditioned by the track and dangerously unprepared by the system around them. That is not their failure. It is ours,” he said.
Dr. Yauma outlined economic desperation, unqualified entourages, weak education and testing infrastructure outside major hubs, a culture of silence, and a public focus on winning at all costs as key factors predisposing athletes to doping.
gdThe ADAK representative said prevention must go beyond testing and be built on four pillars: early education in schools and academies, a protected and accredited entourage, confidential reporting channels, and intelligence-led, risk-based testing.
He stressed that journalists have a direct role in that architecture.
“A journalist who investigates a suspicious training camp, who asks a hard question of a suddenly transformed athlete, who gives airtime to a whistle-blower rather than only to a champion, is doing preventive work as real as any laboratory test,” Dr. Yauma said.
He further called for federations to fund athlete welfare and education, license coaches and agents, and protect whistle-blowers, adding that the durable answer to doping is investment in sports science.
