Roundup: Athletes of detained Italian manager cry foul

Beijing 2008 Olympics and 2015 world champion Asbel Kiprop led his Rosa Associati stable-mates on Thursday in protesting the detention of their Italian manager, Federico Rosa, maintaining their camps in northern Kenya were not involved in doping.

Top Rosa runners convened a press conference in Eldoret where they called on authorities to convict every doping case individually instead of targeting them as a group by chasing after their manager.

The dismayed athletes, including Kiprop, women' s London Marathon champion, Jemimah Sumgong and New York winner, Stanley Biwott, decried the remanding of Rosa has affected their preparations for the Rio Olympics.

World Half and World Cross silver medallist Bedan Karoki is in the provisional list for Rio at the distance.

Rosa, the scion of Rosa Associati founder, was denied bail and remanded in custody until Friday when he is expected to be brought before Nairobi' s Kibera Law Court and charged with offenses related to doping.

Former employee and fellow Italian, Claudio Berardelli, was also detained until Tuesday after appearing at Nairobi' s Milimani Law Courts later Wednesday in developments that have rocked Kenya' s athletics that has been embroiled in a doping storm for the last two years.

"We have been preparing well at the camps for the Rio Olympics until our manager was arrested and questioned at the CID headquarters in Nairobi over doping allegations and we now fear it will affect our performance and we know very well this is a vice being done by brokers and fake doctors," the 1500m star, Kiprop remarked.

"This came up when big names at the Rosa camp such as Mathew Kisorio and Rita Jeptoo were mentioned but there are other 21 athletes accused of doping from other training camps," the 2010 African champion claimed.

Kenya' s captain to the 2011 Punta Umbria World Cross, Kisorio has since served his suspension while women 800m runner, Agatha Jeruto and the biggest case in the country' s history, three-time Boston and two-time Chicago marathon champion Jeptoo remain suspended.

Sumgong said she has trained for many years at the Rosa camps located in Kaptagat, Uasin Gishu County and Kapsabet, Nandi County in the northern Kenya heartland of distance running and without seeing anyone approaching them to supply prohibited substances or encourage their use.

"Since 2007, I have never experienced any use of performance enhancing drugs," the Rio 2016 Kenyan marathoner added.

After finishing second to compatriot Sharon Cherop at the 2012 Boston Marathon, Sumgong tested positive for the banned substance prednisolone in her post-race anti-doping test and was given a two-year ban by Athletics Kenya.

However, she was cleared on appeal by the IAAF in September 2012, as the local injection which Sumgong had received was permitted under the governing body's rules.

London runner-up, Biwott lamented the arrest and detention of their manager had dumped their motivation to train for the Olympics, saying the move by authorities would be counter-productive.

"We have not been informed fully why our manager is being held and it' s my hope he will not be turned into a victim. Training has become difficult for us," he rued.

Gabrielle and his son Federico Rosa were arrested in Eldoret last Friday by officers of the anti-narcotics department of Police and their hotel room searched before their travel documents were seized and directed to report to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (CID) headquarters in Nairobi where they were interrogated for two days.

The elder Rosa was not brought before court. Endit