June 20, 2019, Christian Coleman of the USA finishes 2nd in the
200m Men sprint of IAAF Golden Spike 2019 Athletics meeting in
Ostrava. Michal CIZEK / AFP
World Athletics on Thursday filed an appeal with the
Court of Arbitration for Sport against the clearance of Bahrain’s
Salwa Eid Naser to compete, while US sprinter Christian Coleman
appealed his two-year ban.
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) disciplinary tribunal ruled
in October that Naser had not committed an anti-doping rule
violation (ADRV) in relation to an alleged filing failure and
missed tests.
In its appeal to the CAS, World Athletics requested that the AIU
decision “be set aside and that it be replaced with a new decision
in which Salwa Eid Naser is found to have committed an ADRV and
sanctioned with a two-year period of ineligibility”.
World 400-metre champion Naser was initially charged with
breaking whereabouts rules and provisionally suspended in June, but
that was dismissed on a technicality.
Nigerian-born Naser, who improved by one second a season from
2016-19, stunned athletics when she powered to the third-fastest
400m in history to take the world title in Doha last year.
Her time of 48.14 seconds was only behind runs by East German
Marita Koch and former Czech runner Jarmila Kratochvilova in the
1980s.
In a separate case, Coleman filed an appeal against World
Athletics over a two-year ban handed down by the AIU in October for
having “committed an ADRV in relation to an alleged filing failure
and missed tests”.
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Coleman requested that the AIU decision be “set aside and that
the sanction be eliminated, or in the alternative, reduced”.
Coleman also struck gold in Doha, winning the men’s 100m title
in a world-leading time for the season of 9.76 seconds.
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Cup
He was provisionally suspended for three ‘whereabouts failures’
in June.
World Athletics’ Disciplinary Tribunal upheld the charge and
banned the 24-year-old American for two years, backdated to May 14,
2020.
Should the ban remain in place, Coleman would miss next year’s
Olympic Games in Japan, where he would have been among the
favourites to win 100m gold.
Coleman, who is also the 60m world record holder, only ran in
the 4x100m relay heats in his first Olympic appearance in Rio de
Janeiro four years ago. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) charged
Coleman for missed tests in January and December 2019, as well as
for a “filing failure” last April.
To prove an anti-doping violation, an athlete has to have
committed three whereabouts failures within 12 months.
Coleman previously escaped suspension on a technicality ahead of
last September’s World Championships.
AFP
Read more https://swordpress.com.ng/2020/11/27/world-athletics-go-to-cas-over-naser-coleman-appeals-ban/
The Kingdom of Netherlands on Thursday officially presented a
smuggled Ife Terracotta antiquity dated to be at least 600 years
old to Nigeria.
The repatriated antiquity was presented to the Minister of
Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed at a ceremony held in
Abuja.
![image](/2020/10/NWLRland.jpg")
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyema, Netherlands
Ambassador to Nigeria, Harry Van Dijk, Nigeria Charge de Affairs to
Netherlands, Kabiru Musa and the Director-General National
Commission for Museum and Monuments (NCMM) were present at the
event.
Receiving the repatriated object, the minister said it was
smuggled through the airport in Ghana before getting to Europe in
2019.
“The smuggler had obtained forged documents purported to be from
a former Director-General of the National Commission for Museums
and Monuments.
“The smuggler ultimately passed through the airport in Ghana
before getting to Europe in 2019.
“The Dutch Customs at Schiphol Airport suspected that the object
might be illicitly imported and alerted the antiquity protection
office known as the Inspectie, which is the Information and
Heritage Inspectorate of the Netherlands, to give an opinion.
“The Inspectie invited Nigeria to prove her case against the
suspected smuggler,’’ he said.
In proving the case, Mohammed said the NCMM acted swiftly by
dispatching its lawyer, Mr Babatunde Adebiyi, to present evidence
and argue for the return of the object.
He said Nigeria was successful in the case and the claim was
determined in its favour.
Mohammed said after all internal procedures, including the right
of appeal, were exhausted, the Government of the Netherlands handed
over the object to the Nigerian Embassy in Hague on Nov. 2.
He noted that with the repatriation of the “priceless and
timeless’’ artefact the federal government efforts at pursuing the
return of Nigerian antiquities had started yielding fruits.
The minister underscored the need for Nigeria to tap into
tourism and other fields, where Nigeria has comparative advantages,
in order to generate income for the nation and secure jobs for the
youth.
“One way of generating income for the country is if our cultural
properties are exhibited around the world to a fee-paying audience,
on the basis of proper agreement that acknowledges us as owners and
confers the right benefits on us.
“But this is not possible for as long as most of them adorn the
museums and private collections of others, who describe them as
their properties,’’ he said.
The minister reiterated Nigeria commitment to joint
international efforts to put a stop to illicit export and import of
cultural goods.
He said Netherland and Nigeria will make a joint presentation on
the repatriation to the UNESCO Secretariat in Paris, so that other
nations might take a cue from it in finding rapprochement and
common ground concerning the issue of return of antiquities.
On his part, Onyema said it is a happy day for Nigeria because
there are many Nigerian cultural assets around the world which have
become difficult to track.
He said some of the assets were taken out of the country for
over 100 years back and some more recently.
The minister said there is underground illegal market for
cultural asset which has made them difficult to identify, retrieve
and repatriate.
Onyema said the government is committed to the restitution of
all the nation’s cultural assets illegally taken and litter across
the globe
Musa said the repatriation was made possible in compliance with
the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Prevention of Illegal Trafficking
of Cultural Heritage which Nigeria and Netherlands are
signatories.
He said that the return of the smuggled artefact was significant
considering the fact that it coincided with 50 years-celebration of
the UNESCO Convention.