The eight Nigerian track and field athletes with outstanding out of competition tests (OCT) have taken the tests Monday and are now awaiting the results Tuesday before returning to the Olympic Village in Tokyo in time for the start of the athletics event on Friday.
According to World Athletics anti doping rules, athletes are expected to have three OCTs before they can compete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics which got underway last Friday.
Mostly affected in the Team Nigerian camp are alternate athletes who missed either one or two of the tests for unavoidable reasons.
Others are student athletes in USA colleges who didn’t undergo the required number of tests while in school.Some of the athletes did not fill their whereabouts form which is a requirement for such testing.
The whereabouts are information provided by a limited number of top elite athletes about their location to either World Athletics or National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO) that included them in their respective registered testing pool as part of these top elite athletes’ anti-doping responsibilities.
The crisis within the Athletics Federation of Nigerian which created two parallel leaderships also contributed to the situation.The leadership which hijacked the password of the Federation concealed every information sent by the Athletics Integrity Unit.
Many of Team Nigeria’s top athletes like Blessing Okagbare, Divine Oduduru, Ese Brume, Tobi Amusan, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi and a few others who are among the 782 athletes in the elite Registered Testing Pool have been cleared to compete.
Meanwhile, Oshonaike officially joins Olympics table tennis Club 7Nigerian table tennis legend Funke Oshonaike has officially been recognised as a member of the exclusive club of ping pong players who have competed in seven Olympic Games.
Oshonaike was presented with a plaque on Monday to officially mark her induction into the exclusive club, making her the first woman in the world of table tennis to receive such an honor.
Only four other table tennis players, all of whom were men, had previously reached such Olympic heights since table tennis became an Olympic sport at the Seoul Games in 1988.
One of those on that exclusive list is former Nigerian and African champion, Segun Toriola, who became the first non-European table tennis player to compete at seven Olympics when he competed at the Rio 2016 Games.
Toriola made his Olympic debut as a 24-year-old at the Barcelona ‘92 Games, four years before Oshonaike made her Olympic Games debut at the Atlanta ‘96 Games.
Speaking after receiving her plaque at a brief ceremony in which the other Club 7 inductees Persson, Primorac, Saive, and Toriola were in attendance, Oshonaike hoped the honour would “brighten the hearts of Nigerians.”
“I hope this award for me and my country, as the only girl in the seventh club in the world, and the only woman in Africa to have achieved the dream of representing her country at the Olympics seven times, will brighten the hearts of Nigerians.
“Funke is very happy. Thanks to Nigeria and thanks to the Minister,” she said, referring to Nigeria’s Minister of Youth Sports and Social Development, Sunday Dare.
“Though I might not have won gold, silver or bronze, but I have won what no woman in the world of table tennis has ever won. Thank God for the award – the 7 Club award. I’m a proud Nigerian [and I] hope more women will join me,” added the 46-year-old who was 20 when she played her first match for Nigeria at the Atlanta ‘96 Olympics in the women’s doubles, partnering Bose Kaffo in a match against Russia.
Oshonaike lost out in the first round in Tokyo, losing to Liu Juan of the United States in the women’s singles