Nigerian athlete, Tobi Amusan has expressed her joy to be cleared of guilt of breaching anti-doping rules and is set to defend her title at the World Championships.
Amusan said this through her Instagram account, and that she will now be able to compete at the 2023 World Athletics Championships which begins this weekend in Budapest, Hungary.
This follows a decision of the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) to lift the suspension of the 100 metres hurdles world record-holder after a disciplinary tribunal hearing found the 26-year-old not to have broken anti-doping rules over missed tests.
Amusan had been accused of missing three doping tests.
The double Commonwealth Games gold medallist had consistently denied taking performance-enhancing substances.
In a statement on Thursday, the AIU said: “A panel of the disciplinary tribunal, by majority decision, has today found that Tobi Amusan has not committed an Anti-Doping Rule Violation of three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period.
“AIU head Brett Clothier has indicated the AIU is disappointed by this decision and will review the reasoning in detail before deciding whether to exercise its right of appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).”
The World Athletics’ anti-doping rules state that any athlete failing to declare their whereabouts for a doping test on three occasions should be suspended.
This infraction must however have been committed over a 12-month period, and the athlete will be ineligible to compete for two years.
This is however subject to a reduction to a minimum of one year depending on the degree of fault.
Recall that Amusan had set the women’s 100m hurdles world record when she won at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon in July 2022 after crossing the line in 12.12 seconds.
