I Will Find Out Who Is Behind This — Danagogo Talks Chika Amalaha Drug Scandal
Nigerian Sports Minister and head of the NSC, Dr Tammy Danagogo has come out and talked of the emotional trauma he suffered over Weightlifter Chika Amalaha who was stripped of her gold medal due to testing positive to drugs in Glasgow.
The minister said that such an act was a huge disgrace to the nation and has vowed that he will find out who and whom were responsible.
Chika Amalaha had won her event in the Games but her gold in the Women’s Weightlifting 53 kilogram competition was nullified after she failed her drug test.
The World Anti Doping Agency WADA have come out and vowed they will get to the end of this, as they can't understand how a 16 year old could get her hands on banned substances — amiloride and hydrochlorothiazide.
Danagogo said: "My heart bleeds for this 16-year-old girl. She looks too innocent to commit such an offence. She is naive. It’s so unfortunate because it was this same girl that did so well in Gabrone, Botswana. And she was tested and was certified clean. We must get to the roots of this and the coaches, and our anti-doping officials have questions to answer.
"Why didn’t they do their job before coming here to disgrace Nigeria?”, a visibly pained and angry Danagogo asked. For a young girl like this, we had good plans for her.
"She is still in shock over what happened to her. She ignorantly took what she took for weight reduction. It is devastating to me and definitely we’ll look at the level of involvement of her coaches, officials, crew and our anti-doping officials.
"They ought to have detected this before coming to disgrace Nigeria here. It’s disappointing that we have highly placed anti-doping officials who did not do their jobs.
"It is embarrassing and severe punishments will be meted to those officials either for their involvements or negligence as a deterrent. This disgrace is not only on one girl but on the whole of the contingent and the nation. Enough is enough”, the minister warned.
Chika had won the Women’s Weightlifting 53 kilogram in the Commonwealth Games but later failed her drug test.
She then asked for the B sample to be tested but she also failed it, making the games commission to ban her from further participation in the event and take her gold from her.
Source: Legit.ng
