Athletics Federation of Nigeria officials said they have no fear of Nigerian athletes failing a dope test at the IAAF World Championships billed for August 10-18 in Moscow, Russia.
This is against the background of high profile dope failure by two big names in the sport and also a growing suspicion that many more elite athletes are not running free and there could be more revelations in the coming weeks.
At the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Germany, three Nigerian female athletes tested positive to banned drugs, but according to Dr. Ken Anugueje who is AFN’s medical director, that is not likely to happen in 2013 with the Nigeria team.
He argued that so far so good all the athletes who made the party to Russia have been given a clean bill based on the last dope test conducted at the Cross River/All Nigeria Championships in June.
“Normally after two weeks of the Championships, we are usually notified if there are any failure. It’s been four weeks now and we haven’t heard anything untoward from the lab.
“And so we assume that all our athletes are clean heading to the World championships,” said Dr. Anuguje. During the week, Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell failed dope tests in their respective national trials.
While 100m and 800m defending champions Yohan Blake and David Rudisha pulled out of Moscow 2013 giving room for speculations on their real intentions.
“The issue of doping is getting serious by the day and we are seeing what is happening. We have athletes pulling out of the championships on account of injury. Perhaps we will have a dope free competition,” Dr. Anugueje added.
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