{"id":66094,"date":"2025-05-20T12:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T12:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=66094"},"modified":"2025-05-20T12:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T12:27:09","slug":"national-sports-commission-disqualifies-six-athletes-over-anti-doping-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/05\/20\/national-sports-commission-disqualifies-six-athletes-over-anti-doping-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"National Sports Commission Disqualifies Six Athletes Over Anti-Doping Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Njoku Chijioke<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The National Sports Commission has disqualified six athletes from the ongoing 22nd National Sports Festival, widely known as the Gateway Games, over anti-doping violations.<\/p>\n<p>Director General of the Commission, Bukola Olopade, announced the action on Monday, saying it reflects the Commission\u2019s zero tolerance for drug abuse in sports.<\/p>\n<p>The affected athletes are Marcus Okon from Akwa Ibom in Para Athletics, Ayabeke Opeyemi from Bayelsa in Gymnastics, Shukurat Kareem from Lagos in Kickboxing, Omole Dolapo Joshua from Bayelsa in Kickboxing, Ogunsemilore Cynthia also from Bayelsa in Kickboxing, and Animashaun Sofia from Lagos in Para Powerlifting.<\/p>\n<p>Olopade said the disqualification was based on findings that breached the recently passed national anti-doping law and the code of the World Anti-Doping Agency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis decision is to reinforce our commitment to clean competition. Nigerian sports must remain a beacon of fairness and discipline,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission reaffirmed that it will continue to enforce strict compliance with anti-doping rules, urging athletes and states to take proper education and awareness seriously.<\/p>\n<p>The crackdown marks a bold step toward cleansing Nigerian sports of substance abuse and restoring confidence in competitive integrity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Njoku Chijioke The National Sports Commission has disqualified six athletes from the ongoing 22nd National Sports Festival, widely known as the Gateway Games, over anti-doping violations. Director General of the Commission, Bukola Olopade, announced the action on Monday, saying it reflects the Commission\u2019s zero tolerance for drug abuse in sports. The affected athletes are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":66095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-66094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66096,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66094\/revisions\/66096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}