Nigerian athletes competing at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo are under one of the sport’s most stringent anti-doping regimes. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has placed Nigeria in Category A under World Athletics Rule 15, a classification that subjects the country’s athletes to the toughest testing protocols before they can compete.
The AIU announced on Thursday that over 650 pre-competition tests had been conducted at team hotels, with another 550 ongoing at the Japan National Stadium throughout the nine-day competition. All samples are being analyzed by a WADA-accredited laboratory in Tokyo and will be stored for 10 years for future re-analysis. For the first time, testing will include all three blood modules of the Athlete Biological Passport: endocrine, haematological, and steroidal.
According to AIU chair David Howman, athletes from Category A countries, which also include Bahrain, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Ukraine, have been under close scrutiny for months. “1,209 tests were conducted on the 145 athletes from Category A countries entered for Tokyo, with an average of more than eight tests per athlete in the ten months leading up to the championships,” he said.
A History of Doping and New Measures
For Nigeria’s 15-member team, which includes world champion hurdler Tobi Amusan and Olympic medalist Ese Brume, this meant each athlete had to undergo at least three surprise urine and blood tests within the past 10 months to be cleared for the championships.
This heightened scrutiny is set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s troubling history with doping violations. Currently, nine Nigerian athletes are serving bans for drug offenses, including Blessing Okagbare, who is banned until 2031, and Divine Oduduru, suspended until 2029. Others on the sanction list include Vivian Chukwuemeka and Henry Azike, both serving lifetime bans for repeat offenses.
In addition to the rigorous testing, the AIU has introduced new measures to combat doping, such as the AIU Call Room, a hotline where athletes can confidentially report integrity concerns in their native languages.
