By Our Correspondent.
It is a well known fact that this Olympic game billed to hold last year was almost cancelled but eventually restructured to take place in 2021 as a result of the lockdown across the whole world caused by Covid-19 pandemic.
Rule 15 of WA-AIU requires athletes to undergo 3 OCT within the 10 months with at least 3 weeks interval preceding the games.
The Lockdown period restricted the movement of most of Nigerian athletes abroad and disrupted the planned activities, thus the late qualification of its athletes, which did not allow for the time spread despite the fact that the athletes were tested and the results showed no adverse analytical findings.
Secondly, most of the athletes are students involved in intercollegiate championships and had some tests at the collegiate level which was not accepted by WA-AIU.
Thirdly, some of the athletes affected just qualified for Olympic at the National Trials barely 4 weeks to the games so it is not possible to meet the requirements of Article 15.
Fourthly, extra efforts were made to test the athletes at their various locations after the national trial in lagos and some were also tested in Japan before entering the games village.
Fifthly, on arrival in Tokyo, vigorous appeals made to WA-AIU on this issue were not successful.
It is, however, to be in noted, that all Nigerian athletes took the three mandatory tests, but the last tests were taken one week too early.
Unfortunately,,10 athletes of Team Nigeria were banned by the Athletics Integrity Unit ( AIU) from participating in the Olympics for failure to meet the minimum testing requirements under Rule 15 of the Anti- Doping Rules for Category A federations. The suspension came a few days after their arrival at the game village in Tokyo.
The latest victim of doping ban was Nigeria’s medal hopeful, Blessing Okagbare.
Okagbare was sent out of the Olympics last week after testing positive for human growth hormone.
The disqualification attributed to the Sports Ministry’s negligence lowered the morale of cleared team members and sports lovers in the country.
The sports ministry was also enmeshed in scandal of short paying athletes thus foisting avoidable protests on the Nigerian team.
