July 02, (THEWILL) – The chance for Nigeria’s relay team to represent the country at next month’s Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, has finally been crushed with the decision of the World Athletics (WA) to disqualify the team that secured a spot in the Olympics trials.
The decision of WA was hinged on what it must have believed were some technical errors in the race where the country’s 4x400m team secured qualification at the Open Athletics Championships on June 24, which held at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos.
Unfortunately, the disqualification implies that the Nigerian quartet of Nse Imaobong, Favour Ofili, Knowledge Omovoh, and Patience Okon-George, who ran a Season’s Best 3:26.83 at the event, will forfeit their chance to represent the country in the event in Tokyo, even after their result saw them climb from 18th to 13th on the WA Top List.
The WA has not yet issued the definitive rationale behind the decision to disqualify the relay team but cross-findings have revealed that they did not ratify the results because the Road to Tokyo tool used to determine qualified athletes on their website did not reflect the race result and as such it was not included in Thursday’s publication of final list of approved results.
There are reports that another country seeking the qualification of their athletes in the 4x400m relays petitioned the Nigerian results over glaring technical errors in the race. A video of Nigeria’s race was sent to WA and because the required cones for the standard races were absent where the second leg diverted to lane one, it failed to meet the requirements.
It was widely reminiscent of the events at the 2018 African Athletics Championships in Asaba where the irregularities that marked that race caused the results to be similarly rejected.
It is profoundly unfortunate that on the grounds of these technicalities, which are supposed to be standard operating procedures at this level of qualification for the biggest stage of sports, some athletes who have dedicated themselves to the toil of perfecting their preparations and denied themselves so much and who rejoiced when they qualified are now disqualified.
They suffer the broken dreams of their Olympics targets not because they were not prepared, not because they dubiously engaged in doping with performance enhancing drugs but because organisers of their qualifying events were deficient in abiding with standard requirements.
That is a tragic outcome for the country’s sports ambassadors and a terrible way of repaying them for the efforts they made to come so far. In addition, it costs the country in terms of limiting the track and field opportunities for medal finishes in Tokyo as that has predominantly been Nigeria’s forte at the Olympics. And that cannot be any good for the country.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
