Kenya to investigate allegations made against its team manager after he was filmed offering a drugs test warning

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The Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya has vowed it will investigate allegations made against Kenya's athletics team manager Major Michael Rotich.

In a joint investigation, Germany's ARD and The Sunday Times secretly filmed Rotich, a senior official with Athletics Kenya who marched with the team in Friday's opening ceremony, offering a fake British running team a warning ahead of any drugs test.

The filming took place in the Rift Valley's running capital Iten in January and February this year.

Kenya's Olympic Games team parade in the Maracana Stadium during the opening ceremony

ARD reporter Hajo Seppelt posted on Twitter a statement about Rotich from Athletics Kenya announcing his immediate recall from the Games and promising he will face an investigation into 'very serious allegations'.

Japhter Rugut, the chief executive of the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya, said 'ADAK will investigate, verify and authenticate this new allegation.'

The timing of this story could not be worse as the sports world is still struggling to get the chaos caused by the Russian doping crisis and the revelations that the Brazilian authorities stopped testing their team in the build-up to the Games.

Kenya has been dogged by doping stories in recent years, as dozens of its athletes have failed tests and the World Anti-Doping Agency has had to repeatedly warn the Kenyan government that it must do more to tackle cheats.

German journalist Hajo Seppelt posted a statement from the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya 

In fact, the Kenyan anti-doping agency was only declared compliant with WADA's rules again last week.

The apparent lack of a credible anti-doping system in Kenya is of particular concern as the country's athletes have dominated middle and long-distance running in recent years, finishing on top of the medal table at the 2015 World Athletics Championships in Beijing, with 16 medals, seven of them gold.

The country has also become one of the most popular training bases for overseas athletes because of its altitude, running culture and warm winters, although cynics might say knowing when the drug-testers will arrive is another attraction.

The chief executive of the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya pledged to investigate allegations that a senior figure in the country's athletics team had offered to give warnings of drugs tests