The Chinese Embassy in Nigeria has refuted Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) claims that it pulled out of the 2025 World Athletics Relays which began in Guangzhou, China yesterday because the Asian country’s consular delayed issuing visas to its athletes to the world meet.
AFN had claimed that the Chinese Embassy delayed the issuance of the visas till few hours to the kickoff of the two-day event scheduled for May 10 and May 11, 2025.
But in a swift response to AFN’s claim, the Chinese embassy had said in a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday morning that there was clear misunderstanding over the visa processing timelines.
The AFN, known for its last minute, fire-brigade manner of approaching issues that have to do with applying for visas and entering athletes for global sporting meets with lackadaisical manner, clearly delayed and did not meet the timeline required. It was the same attitude that caused the federation to deny Favour Ofili to race in the women’s 100m event that she qualified for at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. AFN was indicted by the pa el set up by the then Sports Ministry.
“On April 24, the Embassy received a letter from the National Sports Commission (NSC) of Nigeria (dated 22 April) requesting assistance in processing visas for Nigerian athletes to participate in the event in China.
“The Embassy immediately communicated with the Commission and guided it to prepare the relevant materials to expedite the visa application.
“On May 6, the China Visa Application Centre received the relevant application materials submitted by the Nigerian athletes. The Embassy immediately activated the expedited procedure, provided the utmost assistance to the Nigerian applicants, and completed the visa issuance on May 8,” the Chinese Embassy said in the statement.
Although it expressed disappointment that Nigeria pulled out of the World Relays in Guangzhou, it however noted that visa processing “is subject to national sovereignty and requires proper documentation and reasonable timeframes, consistent with international standards.”
“We regret that the Nigerian athletes were unable to participate in the event in China this time, but the statement issued by the AFN is clearly inconsistent with the facts.”
On the opening day of the World Relays, South Africa was one of the four countries that qualified for the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 2025 in five of the events being contested at Guangzhou.
Three federations – Great Britain & Northern Ireland, South Africa and USA – each qualified four teams for Tokyo.
South Africa topped the list in the men’s 4x400m. Spain surprised in the women’s 4x100m, running a national record, while South Africa and Japan ran the same world-leading time to win their men’s 4x100mheats.
In the finals on Sunday, teams will compete for prize money and preferential World Championships lane seeding positions. All other teams will race in the additional round to attempt to qualify for the World Championships in Tokyo.
With the qualification of 14 teams per event in Guangzhou, Team Nigeria will have to battle for a place in the remaining two places for the World Championships Tokyo in each of the replay events. It will be awarded based on top lists during the qualification period (25 February 2024 to 24 August 2025).
