Ben Efe
13 June 2006
Lagos — Female Sprinter Mercy Nku has allegedly failed a dope test conducted at the March 2006 National Sports Festival tagged: Gateway Games.
Nku one of the elite athletes at the Games ran 11.33 seconds to clinch the gold for Akwa Ibom State, but yesterday results of the dope test conducted during the Festival revealed that the Nigerian international athlete has a case to answer as her samples had traces of banned substance, which Athletics federation of Nigeria were not in a rush to disclose.
But investigation revealed that the A samples of the athlete contained traces of ephedrine a commonly abused substance by Nigerian athletes and if she fails to convince doping officials in a hearing that will conducted, she could lose the medal to second place Delta athlete Gloria Kemesode and also Nku faces a two-year ban by the IAAF.
"All I can say is that the results have been released and it is only the doping officer in charge that can give you more details," said an AFN official.
Akwa Ibom team captain to the Games Enefiok Udo-Obong was at the AFN secretariat yesterday in a bid to get things clearer.
"It all speculations, nothing has been confirmed yet," Udo-Obong who was looking rather disturbed said as walked away.
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