2013 World Championships: No dope fear for Nigerian athletes

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.

[caption id="attachment_86968" align="alignnone" width="400"] File photo: Athletes[/caption]

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.

 

World Championships 2013: AFN still searching for funds to camp athletes

With only a month left for the IAAF World Championships to begin, Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN is yet to commence final rehearsals for its team. And from all indications, Nigeria is likely to bank on the element of luck to win a medal in Moscow, Russia.

It was gathered that the AFN is still searching for funds to start camping of the selected athletes as efforts by the board led by Solomon Ogba has yielded no result.

[caption id="attachment_352464" align="alignnone" width="412"] Oshomhole with Edo athletes[/caption]

“There is a saying that it is only money that can bring your plans to fruition. We would have loved to camp the athletes for at least two weeks. But for now there is no such thing, we have no funds to make the camping happen.   “Our major worry is our relay teams. They have a good chance to win medals for us, but if they don’t practice, we would have to go there and try harder,” said an official of the federation yesterday.

He added that the only avenue opened for the relay teams to fine-tune their strategy will be on July 26, when Lagos State is likely to host an athletics meet.

“After that we are hopeful that we will get some funds to at least have a week of concentrated preparation before the championships.”

Meanwhile IAAF president, Lamine Diack has disclosed that more countries will watch the events of the World Championships live, as broadcasting agreements are in place covering more territories than ever before in the history of the IAAF World Championships.

The 14th edition of the championships will be the largest global sporting event of the year, with  an anticipation that the nine days of action will reach a cumulative audience of more than five billion TV viewers.

“We eagerly await nine days of scintillating action during which the cream of Russian athletics, names like Yelena Isinbayeva, Anna Chicherova and Ivan Ukhov will compete in front of their home fans alongside world stars of the calibre of Usain Bolt, Allyson Felix and Tyson Gay. It’s any true sports fan’s dream,” said Diack.