On July 30, 2021, the fastest female sprinters in the world bounced out their nerves and adjusted their blocks in preparation for the semifinals of the 100 meters at the Tokyo Olympics. Amid the prerace tension, in the center of the track, lane five sat conspicuously empty. Just hours before the event, Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare had received a provisional suspension from the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), the anti-doping organization that oversees international track and field.
Leading into the Games, the then 32-year-old Okagbare had run the 100 faster than ever, clocking multiple sub-11-second times and equaling the world record at the Nigerian national championships. (The times were unofficial, as judges deemed them wind-assisted.) Without the last-minute sanction, says Travis Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), “she was going to be in the final. There’s no doubt about that, if you look at her times and the drugs she was using to win.”
The investigation had begun months before, after a fellow athlete discovered performance-enhancing drugs—or PEDs—addressed to Okagbare…
