The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) have thrown Nigeria’s 4x400m women’s relay team out of next month’s Olympic Games in Brazil.
Nigeria’s disqualification from the event followed Tosin Adeloye’s positive drugs test at the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) Super Grand Prix/Warri Relays in Warri, Delta State on July 24, 2015.
Adeloye was a member of the Nigerian quartet that finished fourth in Beijing August last year at the IAAF World Championships. In fact she ran the third leg in the semi-finals where the team ran 3:23.27 seconds, the second fastest time in Nigeria’s all-time record.
She also ran the third leg in the final. Other members of the team were Regina Goerge who ran the first leg, Funke Oladoye who ran the second leg and Patience Okon-George who anchored the team to finish fourth.
Adeloye’s positive drugs test and subsequent ban for eight years means all the results she achieved from the period she tested positive,individually and jointly will be annulled.
While the trio of Okon-George, Margaret Bamgbose and Omolara Omotosho who have been picked by the AFN may be in Rio after meeting the qualification standard for the open 400m, Regina George, who has laboured to raise over $4,000 from the crowd-funding platform, Gofundme, is out as she did not meet the standard and was going to Rio only as a member of the relay team.
Nigeria benefited from a similar scenario at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia when one of Team USA’s relay team members tested positive for a banned substance.Nigeria had her silver win upgraded to gold.
The IAAF has removed the times the Nigerian team ran in Beijing from the 2015 top list on its website.
Nigeria had qualified for the event based on the aggregate of the two fastest times achieved by the Okon-George’s led team in the qualification period from January last year to July this year.
Nigeria’s two fastest times (3:23.27 and 3:25.11) during the qualification period was achieved at the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing which gave an average of 3:24.19 which made Nigeria the ninth fastest nation in the event going to Brazil.
Nigeria’s two other fast times of 3:29.94 achieved in Durban last month and the 3:31.27A achieved in Nairobi in April 2015 will not place among the best 16 nations eligible to compete in Rio.
