The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has set January 19, 2024, as date for hearing on the appeal filed by World Athletics via the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), challenging the first instance decision of the disciplinary tribunal in World Athletics Vs Nigeria and World Record holder in the 100m hurdles, Tobi Amusan.
While the AIU filed its appeal on September 15, 2023, WADA followed suit two days later, and both are seeking to get the Nigerian banned for whereabout failures in 2023.
The AIU had provisionally suspended Amusan in July 2023, and issued her with a notice of charge for an anti-doping rule violation. In a statement then on Twitter, now X, the AIU said the charge would be heard by the Disciplinary Tribunal and determined before the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
The three-man disciplinary tribunal cleared the Nigerian of two out of the three whereabout failures and the AIU subsequently lifted the provisional suspension and cleared her on the eve of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary last August.
Amusan was emotionally distraught and could not mount an effective challenge as she failed in her bid to defend the 100m hurdles world title she won a year earlier.
She, however, proved she is first among equals in the event at the Diamond League final, where she defeated reigning Olympic champion, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn and the reigning world champion, Danielle Williams, to successfully defend her title at Oregon, USA.
Amusan has insisted she is a clean athlete, and she will now have to prove it again at CAS.“I am a clean athlete, and I am regularly (maybe more than usual) tested by the AIU,” she wrote on her social media page the last time the AIU issued her a notice of charge.
CAS hearings are not open to the public and are conducted in-person, by videoconference, or in a mixed format.
