Mirabai, Jeremy’s Chances To Qualify For Tokyo 2020 Hit A Roadblock

Indian weightlifting’s two best Tokyo Olympic hopes, Mirabai Chanu and Jeremy Lalrinnunga, have suffered a setback in their quest to qualify for the Summer Games next year for no fault of theirs.

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has stripped the weightlifting competition at the upcoming South Asian Games (SAG) in Nepal of its Olympic qualification status for not adhering to its ‘whereabouts’ rule concerning dope testing of athletes.

As a result, the Indian Weightlifting Federation has barred former world champion Mirabai Chanu and Youth Olympic Gold Medalist Jeremy Lalrinunaga from participating in the Games in the queue for Olympic qualification. The silver level Olympic qualification level has been removed from the games due to the mistakes of neighbouring countries.

Meerabai Chanu and Jeremy were busy preparing for the Games due to Olympic qualifying. The federation had selected both of them in the team, but the organizers informed the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) that they are stripping the Olympic qualifying status from the event. After this, the IOA changed the team for these games, stopping Mira and Jeremy from participating.

Meera and Jeremy will be now be seen in action in another Olympic qualifying in Doha at the end of the year. The federation had sent the duo’s entry to Doha as a precautionary measure. If the entry was not sent here, Meera and Jeremy’s Olympic qualification would have been in danger.

Under the rules of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), countries participating in the Silver Level Olympic qualifying event are required to send details related to the whereabouts of the wrestlers two months in advance. Following these details, the IWF conducts dope test of the players accordingly, but sources say that except India, most neighbouring countries did not send the Whereabouts details of their weightlifters. When the organizers came to know of this, it is said that the event itself went into jeopardy as the IWF does not approve the event without whereabout details. Therefore, in order to conduct the event, the organizers decided to make it a non-qualifying event for the Olympics.

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