01 Aug 2021

Botswana medal prospect Nijel Amos will compete in the 800 metres finals at the ongoing Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Amos was tripped and fell in the semi-final today and that alone dampened the spirit of Batswana hoping that their dreams of winning the second 800 metres Olympic medal was shattered.

However Botswana delegation acted swiftly to lodge an appeal after studying a race video and the appeal was successful Botswana national team coach, Justice Dipeba said in an interview that they were that Nijel would now compete in the finals.

He said during the race they realized that Amos was tripped hence they acted swiftly to lodge at complain before the time elapsed. Dipeba said armed with all the evidence including the rules they approached the Technical Information Centre (TIC) to register their case.

“What happened was that the American tripped himself, and he impeded Nijel, and that where we were come from,” he said.

Dipeba said at TIC they managed to play the video and they all came to the conclusion that Amos was in fact impeded.

Furthermore, he said he was happy that it was not a difficult protest for Botswana, given the evidence that they brought forward.

He said also their case was made easy by the fact that Amos after falling he stood up and finished the race.

“That was really brilliant of him to finish the race otherwise we would not be where we are right now,” he said.

He said he was cognizant of the fact that the American’s were doing a counter protest, but he said according to the video which was interpreted at the TIC, Amos hands were clean and he had nothing to do with his fall.

“In fact the American has something to our fall, so we are preparing to the final, and we have been given the official documents and he is on the start list and he will compete on Wednesday,” he said. Ends