Nigerian athletes have on Friday, July 30 staged a protest in Tokyo, Japan, after ten of them were banned from taking part in the track and field competition at the ongoing Olympic Games.
MDB earlier reported that the athletes were banned from the Games because of non-compliance with Out of Competition Testing (OCT) requirement.
Read Also: Just In: 10 Nigerian Athletes Disqualified From Tokyo 2020 Olympics
Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), a unit of International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) that was founded in April 2017 to combat doping in the sport of athletics, announced the ban in a statement on Wednesday, July 28.
It stated that the athletes were not eligible to compete because the minimum testing requirements under Rule 15 of Anti-Doping Rules were not met by ‘Category A‘ Federations.
In simpler terms, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), the body that governs athletics in Nigeria, which falls under the ‘Category A’ federations, did not conduct enough urine and blood tests for these athletes.
The affected athletes are now expressing frustration at seeing their dreams of competing at the Olympics dashed by negligence from the Ministry of Sports and the AFN.
The protesting athletes carried placards with inscriptions such as “Why should we suffer for someone else’s negligence”, “We are not just alternates but potential medalists,” and “All we wanted to do was compete.”
They expressed frustration at seeing their dreams of competing at the ongoing Olympics dashed by negligence from Ministry of Sports and Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN).
Following the disqualification, the president of the AFN, Tonok Okowa, in a statement, said that the non-testing affected athletes who are residents in America.
Okowa said that the athletes were tested in the American collegiate system, but the tests were deemed not to have complied with the required standard.
While Ministry of Sports, in their statement, also said the same thing about the test that the affected athletes conducted in the United States.
