The news spread around the world that Amusan, who was banned from competition, would be released to compete in Budapest. The Finn who oversees the ethics of the International Athletics Federation denies the matter.
The AIU (Athletics Integrity Unit), the anti-doping and ethics body of the International Athletics Federation, reported dramatic, but hardly surprising, news less than a month ago. ME woman and world champion in quick fences Tobi Amusan was suspended from competition. Amusan is suspected of deliberately avoiding doping tests.
The investigation starts if an athlete committed to the Adams whereabouts system is three times in a 12-month period other than where he has promised the testers to be at a certain hour of each day. At the beginning of the investigation, the athlete is typically banned from competition.
The World Championships in Budapest start on Saturday and the women’s 100m hurdles on Tuesday. Many were confused when Amusan a few days ago cut off those registered for the games athletes to the list with the addition of “waiting for the result of the AIU process”.
At the turn of the week, Amusan’s home country Nigeria’s leading newspaper The Nation already reported, that the International Athletics Federation World Athletics would have released Amusan to compete. The same news came from several sources.
Banned from competition for two years
A lawyer who joined AIU from the Finnish Sports Association Tuomo Salonen has followed the case.
– World Athletics corrected the reporting and said that the case is in progress.
Salonen emphasized that he will not open the Amusan process in detail in public, but will speak on a general level.
– AIU is like a prosecutor here, and now the case is waiting for the decision of the disciplinary tribunal. Either party, i.e. the association or the athlete, can appeal to the appeals body, i.e. CAS.
AIU considers Amusan to have committed a doping violation, for which the penalty according to the rules would be a two-year suspension. The athlete considers himself innocent. Since Amusan has been declared for the World Championships, it is quite clear that the disciplinary body will complete at least a provisional decision before the start of his sport.
Neither party can complain about the temporary decision, but only about the final decision, which usually takes a long time to come about. If, on the other hand, there is no word about discipline by Tuesday, Amusan would remain banned from competition.
Famous colleagues
In anti-doping circles, it would be considered surprising if World Athletics would settle for a suspension of less than two years without appealing to CAS. Among the world’s top elite athletes, e.g. Christian Coleman, Salwa Eid Naser and Garrett Scantling.
Cases between the investigative body AIU and athletes are resolved at any given time by a panel of 1-3 lawyers. In total, the tribunal includes 41 law students, among them a Finn Hannu Kalkas. In the Amusan case, he is not involved.
Amusan improved his record at the World Championships in Eugene 2022 by almost three tenths when he beat the ME time of 12.12 already in the semifinals. This season he ran 12.34 just before his suspension in July. The top time in the world is in the USA Nia Ali 12.30.