NAIROBI, Kenya, October 19 – Former Kenya Sevens head coach Mike Friday has rubbished allegations made in a Government-sponsored Anti-Doping Task Force that he introduced food supplements containing banned steroids.
“Supplements we received alongside the Apex supplements through Kenya Rugby Union were basic food sources and we sent those labels to Apex for a second opinion before using.
“We also had players in 2012-2013 tested weekly and every time they were completely clean. Everything we used supplementation wise was finished up in June 2013 and I can further confirm none of the supplementation we used was the same as that which has been used in the last 15 months in either the 15s or 7s programmes,” Friday said in a statement.
“We cannot comment on what supplements have been used in the last year. I can however confirm we never used any supplement from Evox. Lastly all this speculations started this year and we had left and been gone from the Kenya 7s programme for over seven months and different supplementation was and is now being utilised,” the coach now in charge of USA whom Kenya will meet at the Dubai 7s added.
The Taskforce led by Prof. Moni Wekesa compiled the report in April before it was released by Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Arts and Culture, Dr. Hassan Wario on Friday that adversely mentioned Friday and his successor, Paul Treu as well as national 15s head coach, Jerome Paarwater of using supplements that were tested and found to contain steroids.
The findings blamed the coaches of introducing the supplements to their players without their knowledge they contained steroids proscribed by global body, World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) although no details of the actual tests or a list of the substances was contained in the report.
The report was however, silent on the level of steroids in the nutritional extras in relation to the limits permitted by WADA.