Tobi Amusan, a world-record holder in the hurdles, claims that she has been accused of violating anti-doping rules after missing three drug tests within a 12-month period.
The Nigerian said she would fight the charges, in a post on her Instagram account on Tuesday.
She wrote, “I am a CLEAN athlete, and I am regularly (maybe more than usual) tested by the AIU,” referring to the organization that charged her with the infraction, the Athletics Integrity Unit, which monitors doping problems in international track.
Amusan shocked the crowd by breaking the world record in the 100-meter hurdles semifinals at the world championships held in Oregon the previous year with a time of 12.12 seconds.
She returned approximately 90 minutes later to claim the gold medal in 12.06, but the time did not go into the record books because there was too strong a tailwind.
Amusan recalled her shock at seeing her time appear on the scoreboard: “When I watched the record, I was like, ‘Whoa, who did that?”
Blessing Okagbare, a Nigerian graduate of UTEP, and Amusan, who attended college at Texas El-Paso, trained together. After a federal investigation into an El Paso doctor who admitted to distributing human growth hormone and other illegal substances, Okagbare was sentenced to an 11-year suspension for multiple doping offenses.
A two-year suspension is possible after three missed doping tests, though there are some exceptions that can be made in certain situations.
Amusan claimed that she was tested “within days” of her third missed violation and that she was confident the situation would be resolved in time for her to compete at the world championships later this month.
Source-Africanews
