Athletics Kenya is in hot water once again—this time for age cheating. According to Nation Kenya, World Athletics is investigating 34 Kenyan athletes, including Olympians, over allegations of falsifying their ages in cases dating back to 2016. If proven guilty of age falsification, it could lead to severe sanctions for Athletics Kenya and their athletes.
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) is reportedly leading the probe in collaboration with Athletics Kenya, which has identified “at least” 30 possible cases of athletes manipulating their birth records to compete for Kenya at several U20 World Athletics Championships. Age manipulation, also known as age cheating or age fraud, is when an athlete changes their age in some way to appear either older or younger to gain a competitive and financial advantage. It is a breach of the World Athletics Competition Rules and Integrity Code of Conduct.
The rule ensures that all athletes can compete on a level playing field. Age manipulation can give athletes an unfair advantage by allowing them to compete in a lower age category when they are more physically developed than others. The rule is in place so older athletes don’t take opportunities or potential medals away from younger, developing athletes.
At the 2023 U20 World Athletics Championships in Peru, Kenya was forced to send home four distance runners who were found to have tampered with their birth records. To qualify for the U20 championships, World Athletics has strict entry deadlines—all athletes must submit passport information and complete visa procedures. These measures are meant to curb age cheating, but sometimes falsified documents slip through the cracks.
Unlike doping (which often can be an individual or coach violation), age fraud requires collusion among athletes, parents, coaches and even officials, who manipulate birth records for an athlete’s benefit. With more pressure on the national sports organization to curb the cases, Athletics Kenya officials say the organization has undertaken rigorous vetting, and started to reach out to hospitals to verify birth records. According to Nation, the results were troubling, revealing cases where young athletes had been manipulated into lying about their ages under pressure from coaches and parents.
This is not the first time Athletics Kenya has sounded the alarm on age manipulation. In July 2023, Athletics Kenya president Jackson Tuwei said the issue was becoming more rampant, with falsified birth certificates and passports on the rise, particularly in junior competitions. “We have been focusing on doping, which has gotten out of hand, but age cheating is becoming a new challenge,” Tuwei said to Nation.
This challenge, combined with Kenya’s ongoing doping crisis, has raised serious concerns about the integrity of the nation’s athletics program. The country has over 100 athletes serving doping-related suspensions on the AIU’s Global List of Ingibible Persons.
