Nigeria’s brightest chance of picking a medal at the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics was rekindled after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) cleared 100m hurdles world record holder, Tobi Amusan, of a doping charge brought against her by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU).

With the clearance and dismissal of the appeal by AIU on Friday, Amusan is now free to run in the Paris Olympics.

Amusan was charged by the AIU 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.

Following the decision of the Disciplinary Tribunal, World Athletics and the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the decision.

In clearing Amusan, CAS said in a statement 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 27-year-old Amusan is the current 100m hurdles world record holder in a time of 12.12 seconds she set at the world championships in Eugene, Oregon, in July 2022 and went on to win the title.

Team Nigeria has missed out on the women’s 4x400m relay for the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics which will hold from July 26 to August 11, despite winning the gold medal and finishing ahead of the rest of the field in the final of the Africa Senior Athletics Championship in Cameroon.

The women’s 4×400 was the remaining relay ticket to the Paris Olympics which saw the quartet of Ella Onojuvwevwo, Patience Okon-George, Esther Elo Joseph and Omolara Ogunmakinju, clocking a time of 3:27.31 on Wednesday night but it was not enough to get them the ticket to Paris.

Nigeria needed to run faster than 3:26.08 to topple Cuba and qualify for the Olympics but they still defeated Botswana and Zambia who were second and third respectively to win the gold.

The women’s 4x100m relay is the only only other relay race Nigeria has failed to qualify for having picked the other four tickets during the World Relays in the Bahamas in May.

The absence of the team in the Bahamas was hinged on visa issues for some of the athletes, including Patience Okon-George, while the 2023 African Games sensational anchor leg Omolara Ogunmakinju was sidelined by injury.

With just three days to the end of the qualifying window, the hopes of the quartet making to Paris seem to have faded.

Meanwhile, the men’s 4×400 team made up of Emmanuel Ojeli, Sikiru Adeyemi, Dubem Nwachukwu and Samuel Ogazi, also missed out on the podium in their final at the African Championships, finishing fourth in a time of 3:02.93 behind Zambia, Kenya and Botswana, though they had already qualified for the Olympics in the Bahamas.