World Athletics has confirmed that quarter-miler Emmanuel Bamidele has officially switched nationality from Nigeria to the United Arab Emirates.
Emmanuel Bamidele, a 26-year-old Nigerian sprinter, has already been listed as eligible to compete for the UAE on the governing body’s database.
Bamidele’s debut race under his new flag will come this Friday at the Brussels Diamond League finale, where he lines up in the men’s 400m invitational against six Belgian runners and Jamaica’s Antonio Watson.
Bamidele’s career has been anything but straightforward. Back in 2018, just weeks after storming to victory at the Nigerian Commonwealth Games trials in Abuja with a then-personal best of 45.28 seconds, he vanished from the national camp and missed the Gold Coast Games entirely.
Not long after, he resurfaced in Qatar and by 2019 was racing under their colours, finishing second in the Diamond League at Doha’s Khalifa International Stadium.
Following his stint in Qatar, Bamidele returned to the United States collegiate circuit, running for Texas A&M before switching to the University of Florida.
His breakthrough came in 2023 when he won the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Texas with a lifetime best of 44.24 seconds and secured a runner-up spot at the Stockholm Diamond League, competing as a Nigerian once again.
Despite flashes of brilliance, his recent form has been inconsistent. In 2024, he managed a fifth-place finish at the Rabat Diamond League in 44.88s, and most recently clocked 45.36s at the P-T-S Meeting in Slovakia this August, leaving him ranked 71st globally.
The nationality switch marks the third chapter of his international journey after earlier stints representing Nigeria and Qatar. It also comes just months after Nigerian sprint star Favour Ofili opted to compete for Turkey.
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