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), just weeks before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Amusan, 27, was charged in July 2023 with missing three anti-doping tests in 12 months. She was initially cleared of the offense by the Disciplinary Tribunal of World Athletics, the sport’s governing body.
However, World Athletics and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed that decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
In a statement on Friday, CAS said 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 competed in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, although she has yet to win a medal.
Amusan has admitted to being in great form this year. She ran a world-leading 12.40 seconds (0.9) at the Jamaican Athletics Invitational in May, a time only bettered by France’s Cyréna Samba-Mayela’s 12.31 seconds (+0.8) earlier this month.
She also set the African 60m hurdles indoor record twice in January and February and said she was in better shape than in previous seasons.
Amusan didn’t advance beyond the heats in her debut appearance in 2016 and finished fourth in the last edition in Tokyo, narrowly missing out on the podium.
She set the world record of 12.12 seconds at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, in July 2022, where she went on to win the title.
Amid the charges, she failed to defend her world title last year in Budapest, finishing sixth.
