Wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt confirms upgrade to silver for London Olympics

August 30, 2016

New Delhi, Aug 30: After a disappointing first-round exit at Rio Olympics, wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt has something to cheer about.

The bronze he won at the London Games was upgraded to silver after Russia’s Besik Kudukhov’s, who finished second in the 60-kg freestyle event in the 2012 Olympics, tested positive for a banned substance, reports said Tuesday.

Yogeshwar Dutt

In a tweet, Yogeshwar Dutt confirmed that his medal has been upgraded from bronze to silver. However, there has been no official confirmation yet.

India headed into last month’s Rio Games with doping cloud hanging large over its head. The embarrassment was complete after medal hope Narsingh Yadav was handed a four-year ban barely 12 hours ahead of his opening bout, overturning an all-clear given to the wrestler by the country’s anti-doping agency.

According to Russian agency flowrestling.org, the four-time world champion and two-time Olympic medallist Kudukhov, who died in a car crash in 2013 in southern Russia, has been stripped off the silver medal.

In the run-up to the Rio Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in keeping with new rules, re-tested Kudukhov samples collected at London, reports said.

Under revised norms, samples are now stored for up to 10 years to allow the use of advanced tests to weed out dope cheats. The deadline for re-tests was eight years from the year of collection of samples but the IOC extended it by two years in 2015.

“The samples of five wrestlers, including Russia’s Besik Kudukhov (60 kg) and Uzbekistan’s Artur Taymazov’s (120 kg), have tested positive for banned substances. Kudukhov failed a dope test in re-tests of samples collected during the London Games,” The Indian Express quotes sources in United World Wrestling (UWW) as saying. UWW is wrestling’s global governing body.

Gold-medallist Taymazov’s samples were collected during the 2008 Beijing Games. Kudukhov and Taymazon would both lose their medals. “With Kudukhov testing positive, Yogeshwar Dutt of India will get the silver,” UWW sources said.

However, the official confirmation will have to come from the world body and IOC.

Once confirmed, Yogeshwar will be the second wrestler after Sushil Kumar to win silver at an Olympics. Sushil Kumar, too, won the honour at the London Games but in the 66kg freestyle.

In London, Yogeshwar lost the pre-quarterfinal to Kudukhov. But when the Russian reached the final, Yogeshwar got another chance in the repechage round and went on to win bronze.

So far, only five wrestlers have tested positive in the re-tests.

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News Network
June 30,2020

Malabar, Jun 30: I-League club Gokulam Kerala's former assistant manager Muhammad Alloush on Monday died due to COVID-19. He was 44.

Alloush, who was with the football club in its inaugural season, was working as technical director at Egyptian club Tanta SC at the time of his demise.

Alloush's mother had also succumbed due to the deadly virus earlier.

"We're deeply saddened by the death of our former assistant manager Muhammad Alloush, aged 44, after contracting Covid_19. The thoughts of everybody at Gokulam Kerala Football Club are with Alloush's family and friends at this sad time. Rest in peace, Alloush," Gokulam Kerala FC tweeted.

Meanwhile, with a spike of 18,522 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, India's coronavirus count stands at 5,66,840, said the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry on Tuesday.

According to the Ministry, 418 deaths due to COVID-19 were reported in the last 24 hours. The number of deaths in the country now stands at 16,893.

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Agencies
August 2,2020

New Delhi, Aug 2: BCCI president Sourav Ganguly on Sunday said the Women's IPL or the Challenger series, as it is better known, is "very much on", ending speculation about the parent body not having a plan for Harmanpreet Kaur and her team.

The men's IPL will be held between September 19 and November 8 or 10 (final date yet to be locked in) in the UAE due to the surge in Covid-19 cases in India. The women's IPL will also be fit in to the schedule, according to the BCCI chief.

"I can confirm to you that the women's IPL is very much on and we do have a plan in place for the national team also," Ganguly told PTI ahead of the IPL Governing Council meeting later on Sunday.

The BCCI president, who is awaiting a Supreme Court verdict on waiver of the cooling-off period to continue in the position, did not divulge details but another senior official privy to the development said that women's Challenger will be held during the last phase of IPL like last year.

"The women's Challenger series is likely to be held between November 1-10 and there could be a camp before that," the source said.

The former India captain also said that the centrally contracted women players will have a camp which has been delayed due to the prevailing situation in the country.

"We couldn't have exposed any of our cricketers -- be it male or female to health risk. It would have been dangerous," Ganguly said.

"The NCA also remained shut because of Covid-19. But we have a plan in place and we will have a camp for women, I can tell you that," he added.

The BCCI's cricket operations team is chalking up a schedule where Indian women are likely to have two full-fledged white-ball series against South Africa and the West Indies before playing the ODI World Cup in New Zealand. 

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Kuala Lumpur, Jan 9: BWF World Championships defending champion PV Sindhu on Thursday cruised to the quarterfinals of the ongoing Malaysia Masters after winning a second-round match.

The 24-year-old had the upper hand in the clash and thrashed Japan's Aya Ohori in straight games 21-10, 21-15 that lasted for 34-minute. The world number six will now play in her quarterfinal match on January 10.

Earlier in the day, Saina Nehwal defeated South Korea's An Se Young 25-23, 21-12 in 38 minutes. The first game saw back and forth action between both shuttlers. In the end, Nehwal kept her cool to win the match.

On Wednesday, the 29-year-old had outclassed Belgium's Lianne Tan 21-15, 21-17 to progress to the pre-quarterfinals.

Shuttlers Parupalli Kashyap and Kidambi Srikanth crashed out of the tournament after losing their matches to Japan's Kento Momota and Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei respectively. 

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