Suspension raised from 10 to 11 years for Nigerian Blessing Okagbare

The record of Blessing Okagbare, Olympic vice-champion in the long jump in 2008, is getting heavier month following month.

The Nigerian, among the outsiders in the 100m at the Tokyo Olympics last summer, was first provisionally suspended and excluded from the Olympics just before the semi-finals of the straight line on July 31, 2021 for hormone doping of growth, following an out-of-competition test on 19 July.

At the beginning of October 2021, the 33-year-old athlete was once more pinned for a positive EPO test earlier in the season, before being suspended for 10 years in February for “multiple uses of prohibited products” but also for his “refusal to cooperate” with the investigation.

The AIU accuses him this time of having dodged a doping control on June 13, 2021 in Jacksonville (Florida), six days before helping to qualify his 4x100m relay for the 2022 Worlds. All his results from June 13 2021 are invalidated, therefore including that of the 4×100 m relay, announces the instance by press release.

Okagbare is also at the heart of the American investigation which targets Dr Eric Lira, the first accused under the controversial “Rodchenkov law”, which allows American justice to prosecute and impose prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines of up to one million dollars to all persons, regardless of their nationality, involved in an international system of doping.

Eric Lira is accused of purchasing performance-enhancing products, such as growth hormone and erythropoietin (EPO), and distributing them to two athletes as part of a doping program during their preparation for the 2020 Olympics.