Nigerian sprinter Grace Nwokocha is free to return to the track after completing a three-year doping ban imposed by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), Bold Sports reports.
Nwokocha, a member of Nigeria’s women’s 4x100m relay gold medal-winning team at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, tested positive for Ostarine and Dihydroxy-LGD4033 (a metabolite of Ligandrol) during the competition. Both substances are banned at all times under the Commonwealth Games Federation’s Anti-Doping Rules.
Grace Nwokocha had ran the anchor leg at the Alexander Stadium in a quartet that had Tobi Amusan, Favour Ofili and Rosemary Chukwuma, fending off opposition from England’s Daryll Neita and Jamaica Elaine Thompson-Herah to claim the gold medal in an African Record time of 42.10secs.
The AIU provisionally suspended her on August 21, 2022, and in March 2023, the CGF Court found her guilty of anti-doping violations. She accepted the ruling in a Case Resolution Agreement, with the ban backdated to August 3, 2022, and ending on August 2, 2025.
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The ban saw Nigeria stripped of the gold medal, with England – who placed second – promoted to first position, while Jamaica were moved up to second and Australia were promoted to third.
The sanction forced the 24-year-old to miss some of the sport’s biggest events, including the 2023 World Athletics Championships, 2024 African Senior Athletics Championships, 2023 African Games, and the Paris 2024 Olympics. She will also miss the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo next month but will have time to prepare for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.
Before her ban, Nwokocha was one of Nigeria’s brightest young talents. She won bronze at the 2019 African Junior Championships, claimed 100m and 200m gold at the National Sports Festival in Edo State, and reached the semi-finals of both the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and the Oregon 2022 World Championships.
She is the sixth-fastest Nigerian in history in the women’s 100m with a Personal Best of 10.97s and the seventh-fastest in the 200m with a Personal Best of 22.44s.
In January 2022, she joined North Carolina A&T in the United States and was named the school’s Women’s Track Athlete of the Year that June.
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