| schema:text
| - Fact Check: Hima Das has not yet qualified for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics
Social media users are sharing a post claiming that India's sprint sensation Hima Das has qualified for Tokyo Olympics 2021.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
The Athletics Federation of India has confirmed that till the evening of January 16, 2021, Hima Das has not qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
Last year’s Summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Tokyo was postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While uncertainty over the event still prevails, a post circulating on social media claims that India’s sprint sensation Hima Das has qualified for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
The claim in Hindi translates to, “Golden girl Hima Das has qualified for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Congratulations to the daughter who makes her country proud”.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be untrue. The Athletics Federation of India has confirmed that till the evening of January 16, 2021, Hima Das has not qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
The archived versions of similar posts can be seen here, here and here.
AFWA probe
Hima Das from Assam became the first Indian woman to win a gold medal in a world championship. Her getting qualified for the Tokyo Olympics would have definitely made headlines. However, we could not find any credible news report substantiating the claim.
Neither did we find her name in any of the reports carrying the names of athletes who qualified for the postponed
Tokyo Olympics.
We then reached out to Hima’s personal manager Rahul Trehan, who confirmed to us that the viral claim is false. “The claim that Hima has qualified for the Tokyo Olympics is false. She is undergoing training, and there is still time for her to get qualified for the Olympics,” Trehan said.
AFWA also spoke to Radhakrishnan Nair, chief coach of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).
Rubbishing the viral claim, Nair said, “An athlete gets qualified for the Olympics based on the World Athletics’ qualifying guidelines. Hima has not yet qualified for Tokyo Olympics based on these guidelines. June 29 is the deadline for Olympics qualification and she is likely to get qualified for 200 metres and 4x100 metres relay.”
AFWA also spoke to AFI president Adille Sumariwalla, who confirmed to us that no recent announcement was made on qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympics.
“All athletes, including Hima, need to undergo multiple national and international competitions to get qualified for the Olympics. All such qualification events were at stake over the last several months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of this, we had no announcement of Olympic qualifiers. We are planning to resume competitions in February. Four of them are already scheduled,” Sumariwalla said.
Hence, it is clear that the claim saying Hima Das has qualified for Tokyo Olympics 2021 is false. Till the time of filing this copy, she did not qualify for the event.
Tokyo Olympics
The Tokyo Olympics 2020 was postponed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is now expected to be held between July 23 and August 8 this year in the capital of Japan.
John Coates, the vice-president of International Olympic Committee, had earlier said the Tokyo Olympics will go ahead in 2021 with or without the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, according to recent reports by Reuters and Bloomberg, apprehensions about the games continue in Japan due to resurgence of Covid-19 infections in the country. Japan has now declared a virus emergency for major metropolitan areas in the country.
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)