Record-breaking Marathoner Eliud Kipchoge has lashed out at the government over the sorry state that Kenyan athletes are forced to endure.
Speaking during the memorial service of the late promising athlete Agnes Tirop on Tuesday, January 4, Kipchoge noted that 80 per cent of the athletes in Kenya were suffering from alcohol addiction.
He further blamed the state of permitting rogue coaches to invade the sport which then affects the success and well-being of the athletes.
Kipchoge also noted that some of the coaches had invaded the sport pretending to be advisers but harbour ill motives.
He therefore wants the government to regulate the sport in order to avoid a repeat of what happened to Agnes Tirop.
"80 per cent of athletes drink alcohol so a lot needs to be done. Otherwise, we will be having a lot of memorial races. Bad characters, people who do not have values are inside our sport.
"They pretend to be coaches. They pretend to be advisers and consultants. They pretend to be everything by they have an ill motive," he stated.
Uasin Gishu Governor Jackson Mandagor, who was in attendance, invited Sports Cabinet Secretary Amb. Amina Mohammed to launch the Agnes Tirop World Cross Country Tour in honour of the slain athlete.
The event is scheduled to take place in Eldoret on February 12.
"The event is named after Agnes Tirop a promising athlete who was brutally murdered by a man alleged to be her husband and purported to be her coach.
"I request Athletics Kenya (AK) to set proper standards for one to qualify as an athletics coach to eliminate quarks in sports," stated Mandagor.
The fallen athlete was found in her bed at her home in the town of Iten, with multiple stab wounds on the neck. Her husband, Ibrahim Rotich, was pursued and arrested as the prime suspect in the murder case.
A CCTV footage placed Rotich at the scene of the murder with the case still active in court.
