Oluwatosin Enesi
The World Athletics has disclosed that women’s 100m hurdles world champion and record holder, Tobi Amusan, has not yet been cleared to compete at this year’s World Championships, which begins this weekend in Budapest, Hungary.
This is in the wake of several reports making the rounds that the Nigerian had been given the greenlight to compete to defend her title at the championships.
Amusan was provisionally suspended last month by the AIU for missing three whereabouts tests.
Head of Communications of World Athletics, Nicole Jeffery, in a statement obtained via Nigerian track and field club Making of Champions said, “Please be advised – reports appearing in Nigeria that say Tobi Amusan has been cleared to compete in Budapest are wrong.
“No decision has been made in this case yet. When a decision is made, it will be announced by the Athletics Integrity Unit.”
In the entry list published by World Athletics, the women’s 100m hurdles world record holder was listed among Team Nigeria’s athletes, but her participation is still subject to clearance by the AIU.
With a decision expected to be made before the start of the championships, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria said it was awaiting the AIU’s verdict on the hurdler.
“The condition that the World Athletics put in front of her name says ‘pending AIU process’, so we are still waiting for it. But I’m sure we will have it before the start of the games,” AFN Technical Director Samuel Onikeku said.
The Nigerian made history at the championships last year in Oregon, USA, racing to a new world record time of 12.12secs in the semi-finals, before running 12.06secs in the final to clinch the gold medal and become Nigeria’s first-ever world champion and record holder in athletics.
Before her suspension, the 26-year-old had been in fine form, running a new season’s best of 12.34secs at the Silesia Diamond League meeting in Poland to win her second consecutive race of the season in July, while she also won at the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold in Hungary same month.
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