Athletics
From bad to worse for Nigeria at Tokyo Olympics as star sprinter, Okagbare fails drug test
It has turned a weird Olympic dream for Nigeria as things are fast moving from bad to worse for the country at the on-going Olympic Games. Track and field’s drug-testing agency has temporarily suspended Blessing Okagbare Nigeria’s biggest medal hope.
It is the first drug-related suspension of an active athlete at the Tokyo Games.
In a statement, the Athletics Integrity Unit, which runs the anti-doping program for the sport, said a sample collected from the sprinter, Blessing Okagbare, during an out-of-competition test July 19 had tested positive for growth hormones.
Okagbare, 32, won her opening heat in the women’s 100m on Friday in 11.05sec and had been scheduled to run in the semi-finals on Saturday (July 31).
Okagbare’s suspension was not the first testing-related problem for Nigeria’s track and field competitors at these Games.
On Thursday, the Athletics Integrity Unit declared 20 Olympic track and field athletes ineligible to compete because they had not met out-of-competition testing requirements leading up to the Olympics. Of the 20 athletes, 10 were from Nigeria.
The Athletic Federation of Nigeria, the governing body for sports in the country, issued a statement attributing the problem to an administrative failure and not to any positive tests for banned substances. The athletes were declared ineligible to compete because they had not completed the required three out-of-competition tests, the organisation said.
“The AFN bears responsibility for any lapses that may have occurred during the process and reassures Nigerians that our performances will not be negatively impacted,” the organisation said.
In a separate statement, the country’s ministry of sport also clarified that none of the 10 athletes in question had tested positive for a banned substance.
Chioma Onyekwere, a Nigerian discus thrower who is ranked No. 16 in the world and whose event was scheduled for Saturday, was among those disqualified.
She said she and her teammates who were affected by the ruling had learned of the news Thursday night from officials with the country’s Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and the Athletic Federation of Nigeria.
“I think we were all shocked,” Onyekwere said.
“Everyone was in disbelief that this could be happening.”
On Friday, all 10 of the athletes who had been disqualified from the Games held a protest in Tokyo, where they walked through the Olympic Village with signs that read “All we wanted to do is compete” and “Why should we suffer because of someone else’s negligence?”
“It is a painful thing to be at your peak and not be able to compete,” Onyekwere, 23, said from her room in the Olympic Village as she watched her competition live on her computer.
Already the Nigerian record-holder in women’s discus, Onyekwere had wanted to break the African record at the Games, she said.
Tokyo would have marked the Olympic debut of all 10 Nigerian athletes.
“It hurts,” Chidi Okezie, who had been set to compete in the 4x400m mixed relay, said in a message, adding a broken heart emoji.
Now, because they are not competing, the athletes have to leave Tokyo on Sunday.
On Thursday, before Okagbare’s suspension was announced, the youth and sports ministry issued a statement saying that 12 athletes from the country’s track and field team had been cleared to participate in the Games.
The world’s anti-doping organisations have long struggled to oversee consistent testing across numerous countries, a challenge made worse by the pandemic. In the months before the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016, more than 1,900 athletes across 10 key sports – including track and field, weightlifting and cycling – were not tested, a failure that anti-doping officials vowed would not be repeated in the next Olympic cycle.
The proposed switch of allegiance by Nigerian sprint star Favour Ofili to Türkiye has hit a major obstacle, with Nigerian sports authorities insisting that the 23-year-old remains eligible to compete for Nigeria.
Ofili announced in September on her Instagram account, followed by more than 40,000 people, that she was beginning “a new chapter representing Türkiye,” signalling her intention to change sporting nationality after years of representing the Nigeria national athletics team.
“I moved to Türkiye to save my career from officials,” the U.S.-based sprinter later wrote, explaining that her decision was influenced by frustrations with Nigeria’s sporting administration.
However, nearly six months after the announcement, Ofili has yet to compete for her new country, and the process appears stalled.
A senior official of the National Sports Commission told reporters in February that Ofili is still considered a Nigerian athlete and cannot immediately switch allegiance.
“She is still our athlete,” the official said, adding that Ofili was among the elite athletes who received training scholarships from the commission last year.
According to the official, if the sprinter intends to compete for another country, she may have to wait until September 2028, potentially ruling out a change before the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Career Frustrations
Ofili’s rapid rise in athletics has been accompanied by several controversies that have strained her relationship with Nigeria’s sporting authorities.
At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, she was among Nigerian athletes barred from competing after failing to meet required out-of-competition doping control tests.
Ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, she also revealed she had been excluded from the women’s 100-metre event despite qualifying.
“It is with great sadness that I have just been informed that I will not be competing in the 100-metre dash at these Games,” she wrote at the time. “I qualified, but those in charge did not register me. I have worked for four years to earn this opportunity.”
Debate Over Loyalty
The controversy has sparked debate within Nigeria’s athletics community.
Former African sprint queen Mary Onyali recently said she rejected offers from European countries to compete under their flags during her career because of her loyalty to Nigeria.
Ofili responded by suggesting the circumstances were different, noting that Onyali “was never denied the opportunity to compete in any competition after working hard to qualify.”
Speaking through her coach, Dennis Shaver, Ofili also dismissed speculation that financial incentives were the main motivation for her proposed move.
“I am a woman, and I have a short-term job,” she said. “This is the ideal time to make the most of the time I have left in my career.”
Türkiye’s Recruitment Drive
Ofili’s case comes amid an aggressive talent recruitment drive by Türkiye aimed at strengthening its athletics programme ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics.
Following a disappointing performance at the Paris Games, where the country finished 64th in the medal table without a gold medal, Turkish authorities launched a strategy to recruit top athletes from abroad.
According to athletics coordinator Önder Özbilen, several international athletes have already agreed to compete for Türkiye.
Among them are four Jamaican athletes, including Olympic discus champion Roje Stona, as well as five Kenyan runners, including former marathon world-record holder Brigid Kosgei.
Whether Ofili will ultimately join them remains uncertain.
For now, the Port Harcourt-born sprinter remains officially tied to Nigeria, leaving unresolved the question of which flag she might carry on the road to the Los Angeles Olympics.
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Athletics
World Athletics Nullifies Junior Records of Three Ethiopian Runners Over Age Irregularities
World Athletics has refused to ratify several junior world records set by three Ethiopian distance runners after an investigation uncovered irregularities in their dates of birth.
The decision follows a probe by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), which determined that the real ages of Birke Haylom, Melknat Wudu and Medina Eisa could not be conclusively verified when the records were set between 2023 and 2024.
The ruling means several outstanding under-20 performances by the trio will no longer stand as official world junior records.
Among the affected marks are Haylom’s world under-20 bests in the mile (4:17.13), indoor 1,500 metres (3:58.43) and outdoor 5,000 metres (14:23.71). Wudu’s junior indoor 3,000 metres record of 8:32.34 has also been invalidated, while Eisa’s 5,000 metres time of 14:21.89—previously recognised as the world junior best—has been struck from the record books.
Investigators confirmed that Eisa’s actual birth date is 17 October 2002, rather than 3 January 2005 as previously documented. The finding means she was 22 when she won gold in the 5,000 metres at the 2024 World Under-20 Championships, well above the age limit for the junior category.
The AIU also concluded that Haylom was older than indicated in her official documents, although details of the discrepancy were not publicly disclosed. In Wudu’s case, unresolved doubts about her birth date prevented the ratification of her record.
Under championship rules, athletes competing in under-20 events must be 19 or younger during the competition year and must provide verifiable documentation confirming their eligibility.
While the athletes’ performances remain valid as competition results, they cannot be recognised as junior records.
The investigation forms part of a wider age-verification campaign by the AIU in East African athletics ahead of the next 2026 World Under-20 Championships in the United States.
So far, World Athletics has not announced disciplinary sanctions against the athletes, although AIU regulations allow bans of between two and four years in proven cases of age manipulation.
The removal of the five records marks a significant setback for performances that had previously placed the runners among the most promising young talents in global distance running.
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The Future Olympian Athletics Classic has been rescheduled from the first quarter of 2026 to the last quarter of the year, as organisers move to transform the meet into a truly national developmental programme spanning Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones.
In a statement signed by Bruce Ijirigho, a former quarter-miler and Team Nigeria captain to the 1976 Summer Olympics, the postponement was described as a strategic decision aimed at broadening participation and ensuring that young talents across the country are discovered and nurtured systematically.
The competition is being organised by the Youth Sports Renaissance Foundation (YSRF), a non-profit organisation registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission by Ijirigho, Godwin Obasogie and Charlton Ehizuelen. The foundation’s primary objective is to revive athletics, particularly at the secondary school level, and rebuild Nigeria’s once-thriving grassroots sports culture.
Ijirigho, who serves as Project Lead, explained that the initiative is not about creating something entirely new but about restoring a proven system that once produced champions.
“This competition is not about reinventing the wheel,” he said. “It is about bringing back the culture that ensured that my contemporaries and I were discovered early in secondary school, received the right coaching and academic support, and went on to earn scholarships while combining sports with education. Many of us later became national, continental and global champions.”
He identified early exposure and modern, age-appropriate coaching as the missing links in youth development across Nigeria and much of Africa.
“The bane of sports in Nigeria and many African countries is that our youth don’t get opportunities early enough and lack modern coaching techniques that accelerate their development,” Ijirigho stated.
According to him, the Future Olympian Athletics Classic will go beyond competition by incorporating international coaching clinics designed to transfer contemporary skills and knowledge to Games masters and grassroots coaches nationwide.
“The Classic will not only discover talents in their early teens but also upgrade the capacity of our coaches. That way, we will nurture them properly to become Olympians and world beaters in their late teens and early twenties. This programme is strictly for high school students because it is developmental.”
The decision to expand the event to all six geopolitical zones, he noted, reflects a commitment to inclusivity and equal opportunity.
“Talents abound in every nook and cranny of the country. There are middle- and long-distance runners, sprinters, quarter-milers, jumpers and hurdlers who were either not discovered at all or discovered too late. With this postponement, we can widen the tent and give every Nigerian child a fair chance.”
Ijirigho expressed confidence that with proper planning and sustained grassroots investment, Nigeria can reclaim its place at the summit of global athletics.
“We have what it takes to dominate athletics worldwide. All we need is to get our development programme right. The Future Olympian Athletics Classic will lay that foundation for our youth and for the country when it begins in the last quarter of 2026.”
With its expanded national scope and emphasis on structured youth development, the initiative signals a renewed push to reposition Nigerian athletics for long-term global success.
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