Nigerian national champion not entered for Olympic 100, blames country's track federation for mix-up

PARIS (AP) — Nigeria’s national champion in the women’s 100-meter sprint won’t run the race at the Paris Olympics because she says her country’s track federation didn’t enter her into the field in time.

Favour Ofili said on social media, “It is with great regret that I have just been told I will not be competing in the 100 meters at this Olympic Games.”

The women’s 100 prelims kick off the start of Olympic track on Friday.

Ofili won Nigeria’s national title in June with a time of 11.06 seconds. Her personal-best time of 10.93 would have made her a contender to race in the final.

A recent graduate of LSU, she is still entered in the 200 meters and the 4x100 relay. According to the Olympic news service, Ofili missed the Tokyo Games because Nigeria had failed to meet minimum testing requirements for a number of its athletes, as required by track’s Athletics Integrity Unit.

Now, she says, it forgot to sign her up for the 100.

“I have worked 4 years to earn this opportunity. For what?” she said on social media.

In a statement, Nigeria’s sports minister, John Enoh, said he had been in contact with officials from the country’s athletics federation and they had assured him that Ofili had been included on registration forms for the 100, 200 and 4x100, and the forms had been passed on to the Nigerian Olympic Committee to submit.

Enoh said he was waiting for an explanation from the head of Nigeria’s Olympic committee on why she was left out of the 100.

This isn’t the first time Nigerian athletes have run into this problem. At the 2019 world championships, a paperwork mix-up almost disqualified Divine Oduduru and Blessing Okagbare from the meet, and they were allowed to race only after appealing to World Athletics.

Hammer thrower Annette Echikunwoke ended up missing the Tokyo Olympics because of the same drug-testing issue that cost Ofili.

World Athletics said only that Ofili was signed up for the 200 and 4x100 relay.