AIU Suspends Amusan Over Three Whereabouts Failures

*Nigerian vows to prove her innocence and be cleared for Worlds

Duro Ikhazuagbe 

World champion and record holder in women’s 100m hurdles, Tobi Amusan, who was yesterday provisionally suspended by Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has vowed to prove her innocence in the case of three missed testings in 12 months brought against her by the world body.

“(Tobi Amusan) has today been charged and provisionally suspended for three Whereabouts Failures.

“The charge will be heard by the disciplinary tribunal and determined before the World Athletics Championships,” the AIU wrote in a tweet on social media  yesterday. 

But Amusan, 26, who will miss the World Athletics Championships in Budapest next month if the AIU upholds the charge, insisted yesterday that she is a clean athlete who is regularly tested in competitions and will prove her innocence of not taking performance-enhancing substances.

“I am a clean athlete.

“I am regularly (maybe more than the usual) tested by the AIU.

“I have faith that this will be resolved in my favour and that I will be competing at the World Championships in August.

“I intend to fight these charges and my case will be decided by a tribunal of three referees before the start of the World Championships next month,” Amusan wrote on Instagram earlier on Wednesday.

The petit Nigerian sprint hurdler set a new world record in 100m hurdles at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon in July 2022, crossing the line in 12.12 seconds before heading to Birmingham to become a double Commonwealth Games gold medalist in her specialty.

Amusan won the Diamond League meet in Silesia on Sunday, her second win in the series this season after a victory in Stockholm and then added the Gyulai Istvan Memorial 2023 gold, a World Athletics Continental Tour  in Szekesfehrvar, Hungary on Tuesday night.

According to World Athletics’ anti-doping rules, any athlete failing to declare his or her whereabouts for a doping test on three occasions over a 12-month period is ineligible to compete for two years, subject to a reduction to a minimum of one year depending on the degree of fault.