The 10 Nigerian athletes disqualified at the Tokyo Olympics appear to be facing what can be called double jeopardy.
They are allegedly being denied a gift of phones provided by Samsung, due to official encumbrances.
According to reports, Samsung, which is one of the sponsors of the Olympics, gave Samsung S20+ 5G Olympics Games Athlete Edition – which costs over $1,000, to each athlete competing at the Olympics.
A report in ‘The Punch’ noted that trouble started in the Team Nigeria camp on Wednesday when the Athletics Integrity Unit disqualified 10 Nigerian athletes from competing in the track and field events of the 2020 Olympics after failing to meet anti-doping requirements.
The athletes disqualified are Knowledge Omovoh, Ruth Usoro, Favor Ofili, Rosemary Chukwuma, Glory Patrick, Yinka Ajayi, Tima Godbless, Chidi Okezie, Chioma Onyekwere and Annette Echikunwoke.
It quoted a source as saying: “Each athlete at the Olympics is entitled to one Samsung phone each. All they need to do is go to the Samsung office, scan their accreditation cards and get their phones. But the Nigerian delegation, through a very senior ministry official, went to the Samsung office and took all the phones for Team Nigeria athletes. Now the athletes went to meet the official and he said, ‘You are not competing, you can’t get a phone.’
“But that’s not the rule, the rule says as long as you are an accredited Olympic athlete, you are meant to get a phone, it’s your right. But they are holding the phone, they are not giving the athletes because of their incompetence at not making the athletes compete. It’s the incompetence of the federation and the ministry, who should have done the right thing by making sure that their three out of 10 out-of-competition tests is complete.”
