26 May 2021

Botswana’s 800m sensation, Nijel Amos will not compete at the Wanda Doha Diamond League meeting on Friday due to a minor knock.

Amos had confirmed his participation but after assessment, his medical team decided that he should give the competition a miss.

He said in an interview that he had a calf injury, which he thought was not a big issue, but his medical team believed otherwise.

The team he said, was adamant that as a precaution not to jeopardise his participation at the Olympics, decided that he should stay put and monitor his calf.

“I was looking forward to competing in my first 800m race in two years and we had prepared well for the competition, but what happened is beyond my control. However, I am confident that I will be fine because I need to race and gauge where I stand before the Olympics,” he said.

Track and field analyst, Aobakwe Showa said  Amos’ medical team took the right decision, given that every athlete’s goal was to compete at the Olympics and therefore remaining healthy would always be a top priority.

He therefore said, it was only right for Amos’ medical team to have him sit out the event to avoid aggravating the injury.

Showa said Amos had been unlucky with injuries, especially when it comes to major events, citing the Doha 2019 World Championships and 2016 Rio Olympics as some of the events where he was beset by injuries.

He said Batswana and the world were all geared up to see how prepared Amos was, with just two months before the Olympics.

The analyst however said not all was lost, given that there were a few more diamond league races that he could still compete in before Tokyo.

He said the risk of injuries could not be completely eliminated, but if they were precautions that could be taken to reduce, then so be it.

Showa said strength and conditioning were critical at this stage of the training cycle and margin of error must be razor-thin. ENDS