Athletics Kenya has thanked the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) for curbing age cheating among junior athletes.
This comes amid cases of school dropouts yearning to be athletes of esteem, especially from arid-and semi-arid areas.
“The challenge of semi-arid athletes is informed by the tricky situation wherein documentation has been delicate yet the athletes have much potential,” said Robert Ngisirei who is a coach.
Speaking on the second day of the anti-doping seminars that began on the 17th of October, he revealed that at the moment schools exercise due diligence and this has helped reduce age-cheating significantly unlike how it used to be in the past.
Ngisirei was accompanied by Athletics Kenya Representative Milcah Chemos Cheywa who is also a coach and said that the extent of age-cheating in the last four years has been reduced by NEMIS which allows verification of learners’ records efficiently.
The former 3,000 steeplechase world champion said that the same could, regrettably not be said of those who dropped out of school.
However, she warned that cheating often came to light after athletes graduate into the senior category.
“Running in the junior cadre for too long due to age-cheating will affect your career once you transit to the senior category and the results begin going down, she warned.
The Coach said that fighting age cheating has been a perennial problem and is almost ending as a result of collective efforts.