Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday (22nd July) urged Kenya's Olympic athletes to "show the world what Kenya can do and show them that we do it clean and bring back the gold" as the team prepared to travel to Rio de Janeiro for next month's Games.

The build-up to the Olympics has been dominated by doping scandals with Kenya's testing laboratory deemed non-compliant by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Last month, WADA decided all Kenyan athletes must be tested outside Kenya before they are approved to compete in Rio.

At the ceremony in Nairobi for the athletes, President Kenyatta said Kenyan athletes did not need any enhancing drugs or doping to perform at their best.

"From those represented here, from (Julius) Yego who taught himself how to throw a javelin and became a worldbeater, to my askari (police officer) here, This is my askari (police officer) by the way. Mr (Ezekiel) Kemboi, to (David) Rudisha and everybody else who is here, these people don't need drugs.

They don't need to be doped to win. They can win."

Despite this, last November, former World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound said it was "pretty clear that there are a lot of performance-enhancing drugs being used" in Kenya.

Assuming Kenya's athletes are cleared to compete they'll have a number of medal chances.

Kenya has long been a world power in middle and long-distance running but javelin thrower Julius Yego won world championship gold last year and will be hoping for a medal in Rio.

They also have a medal chance in the men's rugby sevens, having won the Singapore round of the World Sevens in April.