The sanction for confirmed age-cheating cases in Athletics could easily be stripping of the medals and declaring null and void the performances of the affected athletes, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe revealed in Nairobi during his trip to Kenya this week.
“That would go before our Athletics Integrity Unit,” Seb Coe responded when asked about sanctions for age cheating.
“If we knew that those the credentials of that paperwork could be falsely choreographed, crafted, then, Yes, that is within the ability of the Athletic Integrity Unit and World Athletics to certainly make null and void at the performance. And that would be a sanction.”
“We are very, very clear that that this is about integrity. You cannot have in our age group competitions athletes that are either competing on unknown about their age or competing with falsified documentation. And that is one of them,” Coe added.
As a result, World Athletics created working groups to handle age-cheating and manipulation.
“We put systems in place that allow us to be much more specific about that age manipulation that we created two working groups at the same time aged manipulation and results manipulation. Both are essential to the integrity of sports. And we will continue down that road.”
The declaration comes when Athletics Kenya is cracking down on age cheating, with 30 Kenyan athletes being flagged down by World Athletics for potential age cheating. The 30 cases are now under investigation.
Athletics Kenya President Lt. Gen (Rtd) Jackson Tuwei who is also a Vice President at World Athletics, revealed that they are working closely with the government and relevant institutions to streamline and curb the menace.
“There are two recognised government documents – the birthday certificate and national identification card. If the age of the birth certificate is different from the age of the ID, there is a problem. Finally, there is a passport. If these documents don’t read the same, then there is a problem.”
“A young athlete will not go and amend the documents to change the date they were born. Maybe someone somewhere is doing that for them,” Tuwei added.
AthleticsAfrica was reliably informed that several athletes were arrested before the Sirikwa Classic for not obeying the ‘not-to-compete’ directive. The athletes were registered in the U20 categories, but were potentially older than 20 years.
Age cheating, just like doping and result manipulation, comprises the integrity of athletics. The most affected categories are the junior categories and the U20 Championships, with athletes lowering their ages to compete at that level.
“I’m not gonna sit there saying doping is worse than age manipulation and results manipulation, that is why we have the Athletics Integrity Unit. They are both big integrity issues,” said Coe.
“World Athletics is working closely with Nice University to incorporate technology in monitoring and controlling age cheating. Coe said that AI can also be a crucial tool in the fight against age cheating and manipulation. For instance, FIFA invested in wrist MRI scans to weed-out age cheating in football.
“Now, so these are really important elements that we need to work on. We are working on this technology in the World Athletics. We have a health and science team that are as good as any health and science team.”
“But as that is unveiling, when we talk a lot about cutting edge technology, AI can be really helpful. What I know AI can do is give a greater purpose of clarity when identifying athletes and risks that we want to do intelligently. The days of the rather analog approach, which is just putting lots of practitioners in the field, we have the technology to be able to do,” he added.
Meet The Authors
Michelle Katami is an award-winning multimedia African sports storyteller based in Kenya, with over 10 years of experience in the industry. She worked with Radio Jambo as the first female producer, SuperSport as a producer, and BBC Sport Africa as a journalist, producer, and researcher. Michelle has covered the Olympic Games, World Athletics Championships, World Cross Country, NBA Africa, and the Basketball Africa League. She's passionate about television production, OB production, content production, and floor management. Her byline appears in World Athletics, BBC Sport Africa, and The Continent.
