The Chinese Embassy in Nigeria has offered a detailed explanation following Nigeria’s last-minute withdrawal from the 2025 World Athletics Relays in Guangzhou, citing visa delays that prevented the national team from travelling.
The Cultural Counsellor of the embassy, Mr Yang Jianxing, said the embassy acted within its procedures and blamed the missed opportunity on the late submission of visa applications, compounded by the May Day holiday in China.
“Next week, we plan to meet with the staff at the National Sports Commission to talk about this,” Mr Yang told PREMIUM TIMES. “We want to explain everything we did and make sure such an unfortunate result does not happen again.”
According to Yang, although nine members of the Nigerian delegation were expected to travel, only seven had completed visa applications. He said the embassy approved those seven visas at 5:10 p.m. on May 8, just hours before the team’s scheduled flight.
“We normally require five working days to process visas,” Mr Yang explained. “Due to the May Day holiday (May 1–5), we lost critical processing time. If the documents had arrived before the holiday, the situation would have been different.”
Mr Yang said that both sides made sincere efforts to resolve the situation and stopped short of apportioning blame. “I don’t want to blame anyone. Everyone tried their best,” he said.
However, this account sharply contrasts with the Athletics Federation of Nigeria’s (AFN) position.
In a strongly worded statement, the federation expressed outrage over the outcome, accusing the embassy of issuing visas too late for the team to make the trip.
“Despite our diligent efforts processing documentation since February, our athletes faced numerous obstacles—from embassy embarrassment to last-minute visa issuance that made competition attendance physically impossible,” the AFN stated.
The federation described the withdrawal as a “devastating blow” to athletes who had trained intensively for months and noted that the setback affected not only their morale but also Nigeria’s chance of securing early Olympic qualification in the relays.
“The impact has been severe: wasted training preparations, significant financial losses, lost qualification opportunities, and devastating psychological effects,” the statement read.
Two weeks earlier, Nigeria had unveiled a star-studded lineup to compete in four of the six relay events: men’s 4x100m, women’s 4x100m, mixed 4x100m, and mixed 4x400m. The team included World 100m hurdles record holder Tobi Amusan, U-20 world champion Udodi Onwuzurike, and collegiate sprint star Favour Ashe.
The visa issue meant the locally-based athletes—who were crucial to the team’s relay chemistry—could not travel, while a few foreign-based athletes had already secured their own visas independently.
The AFN has vowed to explore other avenues for Olympic qualification with World Athletics, while the National Sports Commission is expected to meet with Chinese officials to prevent a recurrence.
This latest visa row brings renewed attention to the frequent travel difficulties Nigerian sports teams face, including missed tournaments in basketball, football, and athletics due to visa complications.
Sports analysts and stakeholders have called for more effective diplomatic coordination and early planning to ensure Nigeria’s global sporting ambitions are not derailed by avoidable administrative setbacks.
