Kenya's track and field athletes will not be banned from the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, IAAF said on Friday. Their statement came despite serious concerns over the country's anti-doping program.
The statement to The Associated Press noted that Kenya remains on a "monitoring list" of countries with doping problems until the end of 2016.
But, despite Thursday's decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency to declare Kenya's drug-testing agency non-compliant, the nation's athletes can still compete through to the end of this year.
"During the monitoring process ... Kenyan athletes remain eligible to compete nationally and internationally," the IAAF said.
Unless the International Olympic Committee, which has the final say, steps in, Kenyans can still compete.
A country's anti-doping agency "can be non-compliant for a number of reasons, there are currently a number of others in this position. It does not mean that the athletes will be stopped from participating in the Olympic Games," the IOC said in a statement to the AP.
Continued investigations
But Kenya will be discussed at the next IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, in early June, as there are still big problems with its anti-doping program.
Since the 2012 London Olympics, 40 Kenyan track and field athletes have been banned for doping — a rate of about one per month — and four senior track officials are under investigation by the IAAF for potential subversion of the anti-doping process.
One of those officials is a current member of the IAAF's governing council, and another a former member.
Wada's decision to suspend Kenya's anti-doping program "is a further reflection of the IAAF's concerns about the level of commitment to anti-doping at the national level in Kenya," the IAAF said.
It also said Kenya's elite athletes were now the most tested of any country by the IAAF.
Kenya's anti-doping program needed to be "significantly strengthened by the end of the current year," the IAAF said.
Anti-Doping law still inadequate
Fearing the possibility of an Olympic ban, Kenyan authorities were scrambling earlier Friday to sort out their problems.
Read:
Parts of a new anti-doping law that was ruled inadequate by Wada — and led to the non-compliant declaration — would be hurriedly rewritten and pushed through parliament, Sport CS, Hassan Wario said, adding, "no ban was mentioned in the body of the letter."
Although Wada doesn't have the power to enforce a ban on Kenya's athletes, the IAAF does, and it did with Russia after its anti-doping program was declared non-compliant following allegations of corruption and doping cover-ups last year.
Wada's surprise decision to suspend Kenya came after the country passing anti-doping legislation last month following two missed deadlines. Kenya celebrated the passing of the law then and hailed it a success, but Wada on Thursday described it as "a complete mess."