Sports
Heat In Tokyo As Nigeria Officials Allegedly Deny Disqualified Athletes $1,000 Samsung Gift
In what seems like a battle not fought on the competition ground, the ten Nigerian athletes disqualified from participating in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics seems would be competing with Nigerian officials for the price of Samsung S20+ 5G Olympic Games Athlete Edition.
The phone which is estimated to be valued at more than $1,000 is a gift from Samsung, one of the sponsors of the event, to all participants.
According to The PUNCH report, the procedure for collecting the phone was that each athlete was meant to go to Samsung office in Tokyo, scan with the Olympics accreditation tag and collect the phone.
But Team Nigeria officials reportedly collected the phone in bulk for all the athletes representing the country.
Recall the Athletics Integrity Unit disqualified 10 Nigerian athletes from competing in the track and field events of the 2020 Olympics after failing to meet anti-doping requirements.
The officials allegedly failed to give the 10 disqualified athletes their Samsung phones.
“Each athlete at the Olympics is entitled to one Samsung phone each. All they need to do is go to the Samsung office, scan their accreditation cards and get their phones.
“But the Nigerian delegation, through a very senior ministry official, went to the Samsung office and took all the phones for Team Nigeria athletes.
“Now the athletes went to meet the official and he said, ‘You are not competing, you can’t get a phone.’
“But that’s not the rule, the rule says as long as you are an accredited Olympic athlete, you are meant to get a phone, it’s your right.
“But they are holding the phone, they are not giving the athletes because of their incompetence at not making the athletes compete. It’s the incompetence of the federation and the ministry, who should have done the right thing by making sure that their three out of 10 out-of-competition tests is complete,”
Commenting, an anonymous athlete said, “If we don’t get our phones, we will protest.”
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