Friday’s Sports in Brief – Washington Times

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Despite a surge of doping cases over the last four years, and an increasingly dysfunctional and now suspended drug-testing agency, Kenya’s athletes were cleared to compete at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics by the IAAF.

The International Olympic Committee, which has the final call on whether Kenya’s famed distance runners will run in Rio in August, also is unlikely to stop the country sending a team.

“That’s good news, hey,” Kenya track federation president Jackson Tuwei told The Associated Press, laughing in apparent relief. “That’s real good news. That is the best news I’ve had, at least for today.”

It had been a seriously fretful 24 hours for Tuwei and others after the World Anti-Doping Agency’s unexpected decision on Thursday to suspend Kenya’s national anti-doping body over flawed legislation passed by lawmakers last month. The declaration of non-compliance by WADA raised the possibility that the IAAF might be emboldened to seek a sterner punishment for Kenya, as it did last year when it banned Russia following a crisis at its anti-doping agency.

MOSCOW (AP) – Two Olympic gold medalists from Russia denied doping a day after they were identified in a newspaper report detailing state-sponsored cheating at the 2014 Sochi Games.

Bobsled champion Alexander Zubkov and cross-country skier Alexander Legkov were among the athletes accused of doping by the former head of the Russian national drug-testing laboratory in a New York Times article.

“I considering it an accusation not supported by anything,” Zubkov said, calling the story “simply lunacy.”

At a news conference in Moscow, Zubkov and Legkov sat on either side of deputy Sports Minister Yuri Nagornykh, who denied Russia had ever operated a state doping program.

Legkov waved a thick folder of papers that he said contained the records of all his doping tests over three years. The sheer number of tests was evidence enough that he could not have taken banned drugs without being caught, he said.

FIFA

MEXICO CITY (AP) – FIFA’s corruption crisis was declared to be over by President Gianni Infantino as the scandal-battered governing body broke new ground by appointing its first female and first non-European secretary general.

Senegalese United Nations official Fatma Samoura has no experience working in sports but Infantino hopes she can help FIFA improve its image and regain its credibility after far-reaching corruption, bribery, and financial crimes by executives.

“Nobody can change the past but I can shape the future,” Infantino told his first FIFA Congress as president since succeeding the banned Sepp Blatter. “FIFA is back on track. So I can officially inform you here, the crisis is over.”

Blatter also said in December 2014 that “the crisis has stopped” after previous bribery cases. But within a year 42 officials and entities linked to soccer were indicted in an American investigation into bribery and fraud.

MEXICO CITY (AP) – Gibraltar and Kosovo became FIFA members and will be fast-tracked into 2018 World Cup qualifying, which kicks off in Europe in September.

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