Hubbard was successfully assured a spot within the ladies’s tremendous heavyweight class, the report from the Olympics-focused commerce publication mentioned, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) authorized an modification to the principles because the Covid-19 pandemic pressured the cancellation of many qualifying competitions.
New Zealander Hubbard, 43, has not but been named to the nationwide ladies’s weightlifting staff going to the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Hubbard competed in males’s weightlifting competitions earlier than transitioning in 2013.
She has been eligible to compete within the Olympics since 2015, when the IOC issued new pointers permitting any transgender athlete to compete as a girl offered their testosterone ranges are beneath 10 nanomoles per liter for a minimum of 12 months earlier than their first competitors.
Weightlifting has been on the middle of the controversy over the equity of transgender athletes competing in ladies’s sports activities, and Hubbard’s presence in Tokyo is about to appeal to enormous media consideration in addition to criticism from fellow lifters and coaches.
Her gold medal wins on the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa, the place she topped the rostrum forward of Samoa’s Commonwealth Games champion Feagaiga Stowers, triggered outrage within the island nation.
Australia’s weightlifting federation sought to block Hubbard from competing on the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast however organisers rejected the transfer.
USA Weightlifting mentioned it had no difficulty with Hubbard competing within the Games.
“We respect the rules established by the International Weightlifting Federation and the International Olympic Committee for qualification and will be focusing on assisting our athletes to compete against all those who are qualified for the Tokyo Games,” spokesman Kevin Farley instructed Reuters.
