Favour Ofili has been counting down the months, weeks and then days to her first Olympic Games in Paris. But Nigeria's national champion in the 100m sprint will now miss out on her key event after her country's track federation didn't enter her on time.
"It is with great regret that I have just been told I will not be competing in the 100 meters at this Olympic Games. I qualified, but those with the AFN and NOC failed to enter me. I have worked for 4 years to earn this opportunity. For what?" she posted on X.
The women’s 100m heats are scheduled to start 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 compete in the final.
Media reports quoted Nigeria’s sports minister, John Enoh, as saying he'd been in contact with officials from the country’s athletics federation who had assured him that Ofili had been included on registration forms for the 100, 200 and 4x100 events, 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 Ofili was left out of the 100.
The Nigerian sprint star is still scheduled to compete in the 200m and the 4x100m relay — but says she's lost all faith in organisations to be appropriately organised.
"If those responsible are NOT held accountable for taking this opportunity from me, neither organisation can EVER be trusted in the future!" she posted.
"Next one is the 200 meters. I HOPE IM ENTERED."
The athlete has a horrendous run of luck. She wasn't able to compete in the Tokyo Olympics because Nigeria failed to meet minimum testing requirements for a number of its athletes, as required by track’s Athletics Integrity Unit, according to the Olympic news service.
"Please remember, in the last Olympic Games I was not able to compete because AFN, NADC and NOC failed to release funds for athletes to be tested, which made 14 Nigeria 🇳🇬 athletes that qualified to not compete. Now THIS……" she said in a subsequent X post.
