Kenya has ramped up efforts to root out doping ahead of the Rio Olympics, the Kenyan athletics federation chief said yesterday, rejecting concerns by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that it is failing to tackle drugs cheats.

Isaac Mwangi, chief executive of Athletics Kenya (AK), said a new national anti-doping agency was carrying out more drugs testing and said Kenya would soon pass its first anti-doping laws.

“Kenya is doing the best it can,” Mwangi told Reuters.

“For us, athletics is a national matter, it brings a lot of national pride.”

On Thursday the BBC reported that Kenya had missed a deadline this week to prove to WADA that it was doing enough to combat doping and could be declared a non-compliant nation.

That could see Kenyan medal prospects banned from the August Games and hurt the East African nation’s running heartlands, which depend on the financial rewards earned by elite runners.

Dozens of Kenyans have failed drugs tests in the past five years and several top officials have been accused of corruption, including Mwangi.

Earlier this week two Kenyan athletes who failed drugs tests in August at the Beijing World Championships, where Kenya topped the medals table, accused Mwangi of seeking bribes to reduce their bans.

Mwangi and AK have rejected the allegations as malicious.