Abugan’s Positive Drug Test Causes Nigeria to Lose the Medal
Amid Folashade Abugan, the top athlete of the Nigerian contingent for women’s 4x400 relay, has been diagnosed for having used a prohibitive drug, resultantly, the Nigerian team was stripped of the silver medal it had won in the Delhi commonwealth games.
After the disqualification of Abugan had been confirmed, the England’s women relay team for 4x400m for Commonwealth games had moved up to claim the silver medal. After being diagnosed with the drug, Abugan would also have to let go the silver medal which
she won in individual 400m race.
Abugan’s team mates for the relay, Damola Osayemi who also won the women’s 110 meters hurdles and 100m races along and Samuel Okon were diagnosed negative for stimulating and energy boosting drugs. Abugan, who had been found positive for testosterone Prohormone
waived her right to go for the comprehensive B sample test.
The gold medal for the women’s 4x400m relay had been won by the Indian teams, while the English quarter for the competition consisting of Kelly Massey, Meghan Beesley, Victoria Barr and Nadine Okyere made it to the third position. After the team Nigeria
has been stripped of the medal, the team England has been promoted to the second position while the Canadian team which had finished fourth would now hold the bronze medal of the competition.
The 400m silver medal won by Abugan in individual capacity has also been passed on to Aliann Tabitha Pompey from Guyana and the Christine Amertil from Bahamas who had ended at fourth position has eventually become capable of holding the bronze medal. The
gold medal for the race was won by the Botswana’s athlete Amantle Montsho who has been found negative with the drug test.
While giving its remarks about the verdict of Folashade Abugan, the Games’ Federation said that she had committed the violation of the anti doping rule. Consequently, she had been declared disqualified from all the events she had participated at Delhi commonwealth
games and for her the results too had been regarded as nullified which included the silver medal which she won in women’s 400m race.
In context of anti drugs rule violation Folashade Abugan’s is not the only case which has surfaced after the Delhi commonwealth games event has been over, instead there have many other athletes of multiple regions which have been found guilty using of the
prohibited drugs and who have been consequently stripped of their medals. The Games’ federation is now considering putting heavy penalties and punishments upon those who have violated the anti doping rule and have tried to plague the essence of the event.
Commenting upon the situation in general and with the perspective of Nigeria in particular, an independent athletics analyst said that it was a big blow to Nigeria’s historical record in the history of the event as this was the first time when team Nigeria
could make it to the ninth position on the medal table.
Highlighting the root cause of the problem, the analyst said that a major reason for Nigeria to suffer from the problem was that it did not have domestic ant-doping agency. The other issue was that there was no proper system for educating the athletes in
this regards. He said that most of the times the athletes did not realize the fact that the substance they were taking had been prohibited by the games’ federation.
Prior to Folashade Abugan, Osayemi and Okon too have been tested positive for a comparatively less renowned drug of methylhexaneamine, only recently included into the anti-doping list of prohibited stimulants of the world anti-doping agency.
However, the case for using Methylhexaneamine was not that strong as it could be used with therapeutic use exception certificate. Using this rule as the base of the argument, Osayemi has appealed against the decision of the games’ federation who, after stripping
of her medal, is now considering to put a ban on the athlete for two years.
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