The Athletics Integrity Unit has begun the process of appealing the ruling of its Disciplinary Tribunal clearing Tobi Amusan of doping violations.
It will be recalled that the body charged her with three whereabouts failures in July before she was cleared by a panel in August.
“The AIU filed an appeal last Friday (15 September 2023) with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the Disciplinary Tribunal’s decision, dated 17 August 2023, that Tobi Amusan did not commit an anti-doping rule violation for Whereabouts Failures,” the body wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
This implies that the AIU does not trust the judgement of the Disciplinary Tribunal and wants another hearing at CAS and this is coming just after Amusan had claimed her third consecutive Diamond League trophy on Sunday.
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On July 19, the Nigerian, who is the women’s hurdles record holder, was provisionally suspended for missing three drug tests within 12 months and had faced a two-year ban if the charges were upheld.
The suspension was however lifted two days to the Budapest 2023 World Championships by a three-man panel set up by World Athletics to review the AIU action.
But the AIU expressed its disappointment with the verdict and vowed to review the reasoning in detail before deciding whether to exercise its right of appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) within the applicable 30-day deadline, which expired on Saturday.
AIU Head, Brett Clothier, also indicated the Monaco-based body would appeal the decision, which was collaborated by AIU’s David Howman who told reporters at the last World Athletics Championships in Budapest: “We have some concern that it might set a precedent, which will be difficult for future.”
It was widely reported that Amusan had been cleared to continue her career after the 30-day period of appeal open to the AIU to contest World Athletics’ lifting of the provisional ban on her elapsed on Saturday.
Amusan had failed to defend her World Championship title in Budapest while dropping in ranking, sliding from 25th to 33rd in the women’s overall weekly rankings released by World Athletics prior to the Diamond League finals in Eugene on Sunday.
She had won the finals for the third time while setting a season-best time of 12.33 seconds.
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