African women’s hammer record holder, Annette Echikunwoke, has refuted reports that Nigeria’s US-based athletes were disqualified from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics because they failed to reveal their whereabouts to the Athletics Federation of Nigeria.
A total of 10 Nigerian athletes — including Echikunwoke — were disqualified from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics on Wednesday by the Athletics Integrity Unit after they failed to meet the required three out-of-competition tests.
An official of the AFN, who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday, said many of the US-based athletes failed to disclose their whereabouts as requested for dope tests to be carried out.
In an interview with our correspondent, Echikunwoke accused the AFN of being negligent, which she insisted led to their disqualification from the Olympics.
According to her, she sent her locations to the AFN the six times they requested for it, adding that nobody showed up to get her tested each of the six times.
“Because of the negligence of the AFN – not getting people tested knowing they are a category A federation – now people are ineligible to compete. And looking at who is affected, it’s mainly the overseas-based athletes, so all of us based in the USA, whether born in Nigeria or not. Officials have barely said anything, vague in giving any information about how things are being handled. I was told they talked to the AIU and World Athletics, but the case was denied. So, now we athletes who are affected are speaking out about this.
“That’s an absolute lie. Any time I was asked to disclose my whereabouts information, I gave it as soon as possible. I have the receipts. It’s the federation’s job to then set up testing once I give that information and they never did.
“I gave my whereabouts about six or more times and nothing came out of it. Even when they were asking for my address, they didn’t tell me the reason why, they would just say it’s ‘urgent’ and that I needed to do testing, but never explained the full situation or the severity of the situation,” Echikunwoke told The PUNCH.
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