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Kenya’s Olympic track coach receives 10-year ban for corruption

The ban on Michael Rotich, who was sent home from the Rio Olympics for seeking a $12,000 bribe, comes after a three-year investigation

Michael Rotich, manager and coach of Kenya’s Olympic track team, has been handed a 10-year ban for corruption following a three-year investigation by the IAAF’s ethics board.

Rotich was sent home from the Rio Olympics after being exposed in a sting operation by the The Sunday Times, in which undercover reporters posed as coach and manager of some fictional British athletes seeking assistance with doping and drug testing in Kenya’s Rift Valley, where Rotich was the senior track official. (The athletes did not exist and no doping took place.) During the Olympics, the paper published video footage from early 2016 of Rotich seeking a $12,000 bribe in exchange for advance notice of out-of-competition doping tests.

According to an ESPN report, Rotich was also fined $5,000 and ordered to pay $14,000 in costs.

RELATED: Report: Kenyan coach banned after pretending to be athlete, takes urine test

Kenya has been plagued by doping scandals in recent years, the most recent high-profile cases being those of Asbel Kiprop (2008 Olympic champion and three-time world champion in the 1,500m) and Kipyegon Bett (2017 world 800m bronze medallist), both of whom are serving four-year bans for EPO.

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