EXPLAINED: Why Weightlifting Is Under Olympic Exit Cloud, How Sports Are Added To The Games. And, Will Cricket Make It?

India’s best-ever Olympic medal tally, which came this year at Tokyo, includes a silver bagged by Saikhom Mirabai Chanu. Without that win, the 2020 Games showing would have tied with India’s performance with London 2012, when it had won a total of six medals. But weightlifting is facing a threat of being removed from the Olympic Games over issues involving its governing body. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), in fact, has now given itself more power to drop a sport from the Olympic program. So, how is a sport featured at the Olympics, and why is it removed? It’s exciting because there is talk that cricket may be included in the Games program. However, it wouldn’t be the first time for the sport, having featured only once before at an Olympics, in 1900 in Paris.

Why Is Weightlifting Facing The Threat Of Exclusion?

It is one of the original sports that were part of the Games as it began in its modern avatar at Athens in 1896, but weightlifting is running a grave risk of being knocked off the Olympic program. Reason: allegations of corruption and mismanagement against the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), the global governing body for the sport.

Reports say that unhappy with its functioning, especially its ability to crack down on alleged doping, the IOC warned last year that weightlifting would be removed from the Games unless IWF introduces wide-ranging reforms, including rigorous drug testing norms. For the 2020 Olympics, IOC had slashed the number of lifters to 196 from 260 at the 2016 Games and will bring it down further to 120 at the next Olympics, in 2024 at Paris.

However, attempts by IWF to bring in changes have foundered with reports saying that the sporting body failed to adopt a new constitution that would address issues flagged by IOC at a vote in June this year. Reports said that delegates from the US, Germany, China, etc., have failed to see eye to eye with “‘old guard’ weightlifting nations that would be hurt by tighter anti-doping measures."

At a meeting on the sidelines of the Tokyo Games, the IOC amended the Olympic Charter to state that the “IOC Session may remove any sport from the program of the Olympic Games if among other violations, the relevant International Federation (IF) governing such sport does not comply with the decisions of the IOC EB, or if the relevant IF acts in a manner likely to tarnish the reputation of the Olympic Movement."

Have Other Sports Faced Action?

In 2019, IOC suspended amateur boxing’s global governing body (AIBA) from overseeing the boxing competition at Tokyo 2020 for the same issues for which weightlifting now faces trouble. After months of investigation into its finances, governance, and refereeing standards, AIBA was penalized with IOC setting up the Olympic Boxing Task Force (BTF), which was assigned to conduct the boxing event in Tokyo.

“We have offered a pathway back for lifting the suspension after Tokyo 2020, but for this, there must be further fundamental change within AIBA," IOC President Thomas Bach had said in 2019.

But it's not always that a governing body has to be under threat of penalty for a sport to face the threat of removal. Take the case of wrestling, for example. In a surprise announcement in 2013, IOC said that wrestling would not be a part of the roster at Tokyo 2020.

Reports at the time said that the IOC Executive Board had decided to remove wrestling after finding that it failed to pass muster on a set of 39 criteria — which included TV ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy, and global participation and popularity — following the 2012 London Games. It was also reported that IOC had found that wrestling’s international body, FILA, had no ethics rules for technical officials and no medical official on its executive board, among other things.

However, in months, IOC reversed its decision and re-inducted wrestling into the Tokyo 2020 program after the sport received sufficient nods in an IOC vote, pipping baseball-softball and squash. Baseball and softball did find a place on the Tokyo program eventually.

So, How Is An Olympic Sports Chosen?

The IOC says it “modifies the Olympic program for every edition, keeping in mind the changing trends, the evolution of existing sports in the itinerary and the popularity of a particular discipline in the host nation." Thus, Tokyo 2020 saw four new sports — karate, surfing, skateboarding, and sport climbing — while baseball and softball made a return to the list.

IOC has an elaborate checklist for assessing whether a sport can be included at an Olympics and periodically revising the criteria. After the IOC Session of 2004, it had said that there was a list of 33 evaluation criteria arranged under seven categories, which included, among other things, a sport’s history and tradition, its popularity, image, and, of course, the cost of featuring it at an Olympics. In the run-up to the Tokyo Games, it was reported that there were 35 criteria for selecting a sport split under five broad categories.

A 2008 IOC document further discussed some specifics for a sport to be a part of an Olympic Games. Thus, it said that a sport should be “widely practiced by men in at least 75 countries and on four continents and by women in at least 40 countries and on three continents" for inclusion in the Summer Games and “in at least 20 countries on three continents" if it is to be featured in the Winter Olympics.

But the fact remains that the Summer Games has seen a gradual expansion of its sports roster, from only nine at Athens 1896 to 33 in Tokyo. And new sports keep getting added: Paris 2024 will include breakdancing as an Olympic sport. Indian cricket fans would surely find the prospect of the sport being played at the Olympics mouth-watering given the medal prospects it represents. The International Cricket Council (ICC) has approached the IOC to induct cricket into the roster for the 2028 Summer Games at Los Angeles.

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FIRST PUBLISHED: AUGUST 09, 2021, 18:23 IST

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HOME / NEWS / EXPLAINERS / EXPLAINED: WHAT'S THE BILL THAT'S BROUGHT OPPOSITION, CENTRE TOGETHER AMID MONSOON SESSION STANDOFF

EXPLAINED: What's The Bill That's Brought Opposition, Centre Together Amid Monsoon Session Standoff

Opposition MPs have decided to back the Centre on the passage of the 127th Constitutional Amendment Bill.

The Centre has sought to restore states' power to identify groups for awarding of quotas to bypass a Supreme Court verdict on the Maratha quota in May this year

NEWS DESK| NEWS18.COM

Updated: August 09, 2021, 17:26 IST

A rare instance of harmony between the Centre and the Opposition was shown in the final week of a 2021 Monsoon.

Session practically washed out over the Pegasus spyware controversy and other issues after the tabling of the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh Amendment) Bill, which seeks to restore the power of the states to identify OBCs for reservation in education and government jobs. The Bill reportedly seeks to make changes in Article 342A — inserted by the 102nd Amendment Act in 2018 — after the Supreme Court, in a recent judgment, ruled that it had taken away the power of states to identify socially and educationally backward classes. Here’s all you need to know.

What Does Article 342A Say?

Enacted in 2018, the NDA government brought this piece of legislation as it sought to create the National Commission of Backward Classes (NCBC). This amendment inserted Articles 338B, which laid down the grounds for the setting up of NCBC, and Article 342A. The latter provision states that the President of India may “specify the socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCs) which shall for this Constitution be deemed to be socially and educationally backward classes about that State or Union Territory."

What Is The Issue With Art.342A?

This provision came up in a clutch of petitions against the Maratha quota law passed by the Maharashtra legislature in 2018. Petitioners had challenged the reservation because it violated the 50 percent ceiling for reservations fixed by the apex court in the 1992 Mandal Commission case. In May this year, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court struck down the Maratha quota in a unanimous verdict.

The petitioners had also cited the 102nd Amendment Act to argue that it had taken away the power of the states to notify SEBCs that could be included among the backward classes. The top court, in a 3:2 verdict, upheld this contention and said that the states no longer had the power to identify SEBCs under their jurisdiction for grant of quota in jobs and admissions as the 102nd amendment gave only the President that authority.

This judgment stripping the states of their power to identify what groups to include among OBCs for local reservations — which they were empowered to do since the 1993 Mandal reservations entered into force — became a major source of tension with allegations that it undermined the federal “structure" of the Indian polity.

After the Supreme Court ruling, the Centre filed a review petition against it, saying that it was never its stand that the states should not have the power to identify groups for inclusion in their local lists of Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

What Has The Centre Proposed?

While ruling on the identification of SEBCs by the states, the Supreme Court had said that its verdict left intact their power to make reservations for particular communities or castes, the quantum of reservations, the nature of benefits, and the kind of reservations, etc. The only change, the apex court said, was that the states could only make suggestions to the President for “inclusion, exclusion or modification of castes or communities" in the SEBC list.

Reports said that the 127th Amendment Bill is intended to update clauses 1 and 2 of Article 342A and introduce clause 342A(3) to override the Supreme Court judgment. Changes will also be made in some other articles to give states the power to notify SEBCs.

Note: An earlier version of this article was published on July 26, 2021.

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EXPLAINED: Why Weightlifting Is Under Olympic Exit Cloud, How Sports Are Added To The Games. And, Will Cricket Make It?

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So, How Is An Olympic Sports Chosen?

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What Is The Issue With Art.342A?

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