Nigeria’s only individual Olympics gold medallist, Chioma Ajunwa- Opara, has blamed the World Athletics for the growing cases of doping in the sport.
Ajunwa, who was speaking on the heels of the ban of Nigeria’s queen of the track, Blessing Okagbare, by World Athletics, said WA deepened the doping problem by adopting a new arrangement whereby only top-three runners are paid instead of all of the participating athletes.
She said this new approach had further exacerbated the problem of doping and encouraged the athletes’ win-at-all-cost attitutude. “I also believe that World Athletics is part of this problem by dumping the earlier arrangements on paying the athletes, during the Grand Prix where all the athletes are paid.
“The arrangement now is that World Athletics only pays the top three runners, instead of paying the athletes in all their categories, which are category A, B, and C. “The competition is now keen to emerge as top three in the whole world.
This is an area of concern, World Athletics should revert to the old system of paying all the participants to encourage all athletes,” she said. Ajunwa-Opara however called on athletes to quit doping and rather face the reality of intense competition for world titles. The Athletics Integrity Unit handed a 10-year ban for doping violations by Okagbare, Nigeria’s 2008 long jump silver medallist.
Okagbare, was initially expelled from the women’s 100m semi-finals after testing positive for human growth hormone at an outof- competition test in Slovakia on July 19, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Ajunwa-Opara, the first black African woman to win an Olympic gold medal in a field event, who had suffered a similar fate, urged for more sensitisation and support from the Athletics Federation of Nigeria.
“The ban will definitely affect her career, maybe her career in athletics is over. I believe AFN can give her the support she needed.”
