The Latest: Kenyan government seeks urgent meeting with WADA

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LONDON (AP) — The Latest on the developments in the Olympic world (all times local):

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3:25 p.m.

The Kenyan government says it is seeking an urgent meeting with the World Anti-Doping Agency following the suspension of its drug-testing body.

Sports Minister Hassan Wario says he will possibly travel to Montreal, where WADA is based, this weekend.

WADA’s move to declare the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya non-compliant was the latest blow for the nation, whose long history of distance-running success continues to be eroded by doping problems. Kenyan track and field is also grappling with a stream of doping cases and allegations of corruption of the anti-doping process by senior track federation officials.

The IAAF has given Kenya until the end of the year to sort out its doping program.

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3:20 p.m.

Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko says he has fallen short in the fight against doping.

In an interview with the ARD television network in Germany, Mutko says “I cannot say that, after eight years in office, I can claim great success in this area.”

The interview was conducted in late April, before the latest allegations about a state-run doping system in Russia manipulating samples at the Sochi Olympics.

Mutko says “we never had a policy of cover-ups. We never protected and will not protect those athletes in the future.”

The ARD channel revealed large-scale doping in Russian athletics last year.

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2:35 p.m.

The Olympic gold medalists from Russia who have been accused of being part of a state-sponsored doping program say they are considering legal action against the source of a New York Times report.

Bobsledder Alexander Zubkov and cross-country skier Alexander Legkov, who won three gold medals between them at the Sochi Olympics, say they may file for defamation against Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Russian national anti-doping laboratory.

The Times reported Thursday that Zubkov and Legkov’s names were on a spreadsheet allegedly provided to Rodchenkov by the Russian Sports Ministry listing athletes who were part of a state doping program. The spreadsheet was not published and could not be verified by The Associated Press.

Zubkov says the newspaper’s accusations are “simply lunacy,” while Legkov said anyone who was doping would have been “a kamikaze” because testing at the Olympics and at other competitions was so frequent that they would surely have been caught.

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2:10 p.m.

Russia’s deputy sports minister says there is no way that Russia could have manipulated doping samples at the Sochi Olympics.

Yuri Nagornykh says the presence of foreign observers at the lab would have made such a scheme impossible, adding Russia “did not have the opportunity to influence in any way the system of doping control procedures, storage and transport.”

Nagornykh also has denied that Russia operated a state doping program and adds the allegations could be the product of “unfulfilled creative ambition” from Grigory Rodchenkov, who headed the anti-doping laboratory which tested samples at the games.

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1 p.m.

The IAAF says it won’t ban Kenya’s track and field athletes from the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro despite having serious concerns over the country’s anti-doping program.

The IAAF says in a statement to The Associated Press that Kenya remains on a “monitoring list” of countries with doping problems until the end of the year.

But, despite Thursday’s decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency to suspend Kenya’s drug-testing agency, the IAAF says its athletes can still compete internationally through to the end of 2016.

That means Kenyans will be able to take part in track and field at the Rio Games in August, unless the International Olympic Committee steps in. That is considered unlikely.

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12:45 p.m.

The Turkish Olympic Committee says it is up to the IOC to investigate payments linked to Tokyo’s winning bid for the 2020 Games.

Istanbul lost to Tokyo in the final round of voting by the International Olympic Committee in 2013. Madrid was eliminated in the first round.

French prosecutors said Thursday that $2 million tied to Tokyo’s bid was apparently paid to an account in Singapore linked to the son of disgraced former IAAF President Lamine Diack in the months immediately before and after the IOC vote.

The Turkish committee says it is “aware of the allegations made against Tokyo 2020 bid committee” but notes they are being investigated by the IOC. The Turkish body says it won’t comment further until the IOC and French authorities have completed their work.

The statement says “it would be wrong to try and pre-judge the findings and any possible action that may follow.”

The committee disassociated itself from comments by a Turkish official in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper saying the 2020 Games could be moved to London if Japan is found to have used bribery.

The statement says the comments by Yalcin Aksoy, secretary general of the Turkish committee, “were the personal views of an individual and do not reflect the official views of the TOC.”

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12:20 p.m.

The IOC says it is ready to discuss an offer from Moscow’s former anti-doping lab director to retest stored doping samples from the Sochi Olympics with his assistance.

Grigory Rodchenkov revealed to the New York Times how Russia tampered with urine samples to guarantee clean tests for its athletes during the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

Rodchenkov and the filmmaker he’s working with on a documentary sent a letter, obtained by The Associated Press, to the presidents of the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency, urging them to test the samples while the moviemaker films the action.

The IOC tells the AP on Friday that “we are already in touch with WADA to discuss the offer of Mr. Rodchenkov to provide information on his claims.”

The IOC says it would “welcome any evidence that will help to determine the truth or otherwise of these allegations.”

The IOC says if wrongdoing is uncovered it “will not hesitate to act decisively to punish those responsible and to defend the clean athletes.”

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11:30 a.m.

Jessica Ennis-Hill’s coach says the Olympic heptathlon champion is considering missing a training camp in Brazil for British athletes ahead of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro over fears about the Zika virus.

Toni Minichiello says Ennis-Hill, who gave birth to her first child in 2014, wants to have more children after the Olympics. Zika has now been proven to cause a range of birth defects, including babies born with abnormally small heads.

Britain has scheduled a training camp in Belo Horizonte for most of the country’s Olympic athletes for the week before they travel to Rio.

Minichiello says in Friday’s edition of British newspaper The Daily Mail that Ennis-Hill is weighing up other options, including going to the United States, staying in her home city of Sheffield, or heading to another location in Europe.

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10:35 a.m.

The Tokyo Olympic bid committee has acknowledged making payments to a firm in Singapore in relation to the city’s bid to host the 2020 Games, saying they were legitimate consulting fees.

In the months immediately before and after the Olympic vote in 2013, 2.8 million Singapore dollars ($2 million) is thought to have been transferred in two segments from a bank in Japan to the account in Singapore of a company called Black Tidings, French prosecutors said Thursday. The transactions were marked “Tokyo 2020 Olympic Game Bid.”

Ian Tan Tong Han is the holder of the Black Tidings account.

Tsunekazu Takeda, the former president of the bid committee, said in a statement on Friday that “the payments mentioned in the media were a legitimate consultant’s fee paid to the service we received from Mr. Tan’s company.”

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10:15 a.m.

Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says allegations that the Russian state organized and covered up doping at the Sochi Olympics are “a turncoat’s libel.”

Dmitry Peskov attacked the credibility of former Russian anti-doping official Grigory Rodchenkov, who told the New York Times that he switched tainted urine samples for clean ones during the Olympics.

Rodchenkov also said he believed the Russian security services had helped to cover up doping.

Peskov adds that he “wouldn’t put trust in such unfounded claims.”

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10 a.m.

Two Olympic gold medalists from Russia deny doping after they were named in a report detailing cheating at the 2014 Sochi Games.

Bobsledder Alexander Zubkov and cross-country skier Alexander Legkov tell state TV that they were clean during the Olympics.

Zubkov says a New York Times article about Russian doping is “baseless libel,” while Legkov defends his “honest medals” and casts doubt on the credibility of the newspaper’s source, former Russian anti-doping official Grigory Rodchenkov.

Rodchenkov says he was instructed to switch the drug test samples of doped Russian athletes at the Olympics.

Zubkov was a surprise gold medalist in the two-man and four-man bobsled in Sochi at the age of 39, and also carried the Russian flag in the opening ceremony.

Legkov won gold in the 50-kilometer men’s cross-country skiing.

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9:35 a.m.

Kenya’s sports minister says the country will rush through changes to anti-doping legislation in an attempt to be compliant with global rules, and avoid the possibility of being excluded from track and field at the Olympics.

With the Rio de Janeiro Games less than three months away, Sports Minister Hassan Wario says there can be a swift solution following the World Anti-Doping Agency’s decision to declare Kenya non-compliant.

Wario says WADA has told Kenyan authorities which parts of the law are problematic. Wario says “as soon as parliament reviews those highlighted bits of the legislation we are fully compliant.”

Wario has also been summoned by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to explain why WADA rejected Kenya’s new legislation.

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8:10 a.m.

Japan’s Olympics minister says Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics was fair, despite fresh allegations of bribery.

French prosecutors said Thursday that $2 million associated with Tokyo’s bid was apparently paid to an account linked to the son of the disgraced former IAAF president Lamine Diack in the months immediately before and after Tokyo won the games.

Toshiaki Endo says he is proud Tokyo’s bid “was seen to have been conducted in the fairest manner among all the candidate cities. So I believe there was no such thing (as the payments) and I believe there couldn’t be.”

Tokyo organizers say they have no knowledge of such payments and the city won the rights to host the games because it presented the best bid.

FILE – In this file photo taken on Wednesday, April 20, 2016, Russia’s Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko gestures while speaking during his and FIFA President Gianni Infantino news conference after their addressed the upper chamber of the Russian parliament in Moscow, Russia. Russian officials took clean urine from athletes months before the Sochi Olympics, and used soda containers and baby bottles passed through a hole in the wall of a testing lab to evade doping tests, the former head of Russian’s anti-doping laboratory told The New York Times. Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko defended the Russian athletes. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2016/05/web1_110313276-00771e01bf04413e915ad9025fc73887.jpgFILE – In this file photo taken on Wednesday, April 20, 2016, Russia’s Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko gestures while speaking during his and FIFA President Gianni Infantino news conference after their addressed the upper chamber of the Russian parliament in Moscow, Russia. Russian officials took clean urine from athletes months before the Sochi Olympics, and used soda containers and baby bottles passed through a hole in the wall of a testing lab to evade doping tests, the former head of Russian’s anti-doping laboratory told The New York Times. Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko defended the Russian athletes. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

Cross-country skier Alexander Legkov speaks at a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Friday, May 13, 2016. Two Olympic gold medalists from Russia, bobsled champion Alexander Zubkov and cross-country skier Alexander Legkov, denied doping Friday, a day after they were named in a newspaper report detailing state-sponsored cheating at the 2014 Sochi Games. They were among the athletes accused in a New York Times article of doping by the former head of the Russian national drug-testing laboratory. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2016/05/web1_110313276-a9d065320aaa44d4a815d162b1e906ad.jpgCross-country skier Alexander Legkov speaks at a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Friday, May 13, 2016. Two Olympic gold medalists from Russia, bobsled champion Alexander Zubkov and cross-country skier Alexander Legkov, denied doping Friday, a day after they were named in a newspaper report detailing state-sponsored cheating at the 2014 Sochi Games. They were among the athletes accused in a New York Times article of doping by the former head of the Russian national drug-testing laboratory. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

FILE – In this Feb. 21, 2014, file photo, a man walks past a sign reading doping control, at the Laura biathlon and cross-country ski center, at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. The IOC "would not hesitate" to retest drug samples from the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi if there is evidence that doping controls were manipulated, according to the Olympic body’s medical director. A Russian whistleblower told CBS’ "60 Minutes" that four Russian gold medalists from the Sochi Olympics used steroids and Russian security agents worked as doping control officers during the games. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2016/05/web1_110313276-44249d1a29014ceaafcecd36c3cce180.jpgFILE – In this Feb. 21, 2014, file photo, a man walks past a sign reading doping control, at the Laura biathlon and cross-country ski center, at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. The IOC "would not hesitate" to retest drug samples from the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi if there is evidence that doping controls were manipulated, according to the Olympic body’s medical director. A Russian whistleblower told CBS’ "60 Minutes" that four Russian gold medalists from the Sochi Olympics used steroids and Russian security agents worked as doping control officers during the games. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

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