Nigeria’s women 4x400m team disqualified from Tokyo Olympics

World Athletics (WA) has refused to recognise the result that secured Nigeria’s women 4×400 meters relay team qualification for next year’s Olympics in Tokyo over technical errors from the organisers.

The team, which comprises Nse Imaobong, Favour Ofili, Knowledge Omovoh, and Patience Okon-George,  ran a season’s best 3:26.83 at the Lagos Open Athletics Championships on June 24 to book a berth at the games.

But the WA has sighted technical errors in the race and consequently determined that the result won’t count.

Confirming the development to TheCable, Dare Esan, a media representative of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), said the technical errors that led to the rejection of the result was the absence of any form of demarcations between the track and field while the race was ongoing.

“The technical error is an issue of demarcations usually placed around the stadium by the inside lane. This will let the athletes know the boundaries and enable monitoring. Unfortunately, this wasn’t done by the organisers of the race.” he said.

He also stated that the competition wasn’t organised by the AFN but the Lagos state Athletics Association, an affiliate of the federation.

“The AFN did not organise the race,” Esan said.

“And the AFN doesn’t need to supervise a competition, especially if an affiliate body hosts it. It’s like AFN holding a competition and expecting World Athletic to come and supervise; no, they trust us to do the right thing.”