Nigeria’s 100m hurdles world record holder Tobi Amusan has been cleared of her pending whereabouts failure charges by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), a few weeks before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Amusan, 27, was charged in July 2023 with missing three anti-doping tests in 12 months but was cleared of the offence by the Disciplinary Tribunal of the sport’s governing body, World Athletics.
However, World Athletics and the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against that decision.
In a statement on Friday, CAS said that its panel “unanimously acknowledged that the athlete committed two filing failures but did not confirm the existence of a missed test, alleged by WA and WADA, which would have been the third Whereabouts Failure committed within 12 months”.
The world record holder is on course for her third appearance at the Olympic Games having featured in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 but yet to win a medal.
She has admitted to being in great form this year which has seen her run a world lead of 12.40secs (0.9), at the Jamaican Athletics Invitational in May, which was only bettered by France’s Cyréna Samba-Mayela’s 12.31s (+0.8) earlier this month.
She had also set the African 60m hurdles indoor record twice in January and February and admitted she was in better shape than in previous seasons.
She didn’t make it beyond the heats on her debut appearance in 2016 and finished fourth at the last edition in Tokyo, marginally missing out on the podium.
Amusan set the world record of 12.12s in the world championships in Eugene, Oregon, in July 2022 and went on to win the title.
Amid the charges, she failed to defend her world title last year in Budapest where she finished sixth.
