Team Nigeria’s boxer, Cynthia Ogunsemilore, has been withdrawn from the women’s tournament at the Paris Olympics after testing positive for a banned substance, the International Testing Agency (ITA) reported on Saturday. The 22-year-old lightweight champion of the African Games tested positive for the diuretic furosemide in a sample collected on Thursday. Furosemide is known to mask the presence of other drugs.
As a result, Ogunsemilore has been provisionally suspended and will not compete in the Olympics. She was set to compete in the round of 16 on Monday as the fourth-seeded boxer in the women’s 60-kilogram division.
Earlier this year, Ogunsemilore claimed the African Games title in her weight class and earned a bronze medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
This is the second case of a positive drug test revealed during the Paris Olympics. On Friday, the ITA announced that Iraqi judoka Sajjad Sehen tested positive for two anabolic steroids.
