A long list of Nigeria’s top athletes at the ongoing Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan have been cleared to compete at the global sports showpiece after scaling the doping hurdle of World Athletics, megasportsarena.com reports.
The list is led by the female trio of ace sprinter, Blessing Okagbare, long jumper Ese Brume and hurdler, Oluwatobiloba Amusan as well as male sprinter, Divine Oduduru, who were all very active in major global competitions before heading to The Land of The Rising Sun.
The elite athletes did not have to go through any further tests on arrival at the Games’ venue in Tokyo, as they had scaled varying levels of regular checks during their busy schedules on the international circuit.
However, a report by Nigerian daily, Completes Sports revealed that eight other Nigerian track and field athletes with outstanding out of competition tests (OCT) had to undergo further tests on Monday and are now awaiting the results before returning to the Games Village in Tokyo.
The tested athletes will hope to get their eligibility statuses regulated in time for them to settle down and concentrate fully on the start of athletics events on Friday, having obeyed the strict regulation by World Athletics that athletes must have three OCTs before they can compete.
The report adds: “Mostly affected in the Team Nigerian camp are alternate athletes who missed either one or two of the tests for unavoidable reasons. Others are student athletes in USA colleges who didn’t undergo the required number of tests while in school.”
