In an attempt to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, sporting events across the world are either being suspended or postponed. This, in turn, has had an impact on Indian athletes who are looking to qualify for the 2020 summer Olympics in Tokyo. What has added to the confusion is the fact that almost no international federation has, as yet, made any contingency for the cancellation of qualification tournaments.
Here is where India's athletes stand in their qualification race across these key Olympic sports:
Athletics
Number of Indian athletes qualified: 9 including Neeraj Chopra
Potential number of Olympic quotas remaining: 141
Big names yet to qualify: Dutee Chand, Hima Das, Jinson Johnson, Muhammed Anas
The path to qualification: India has qualified a total of nine track and field athletes so far - four men, one women as well as a squad comprising two men and two women for the mixed team relay events.
The remaining athletes will likely qualify on the basis of their IAAF world rankings. The IAAF world rankings are based on the average of the best five results for the athlete over the qualifying period. The results are weighted by the importance of the meet.
As of 14th March, only two major competitions - the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing and the World Team Racewalking Championships have been postponed.
Boxing
Number of athletes qualified: 9 including MC Mary Kom, Amit Panghal, Vikas Krishan, Manish Kaushik, Lovlina Borgohain
Number of athletes who remain to be qualified: 4 (men's 57kg, 81kg, 91kg and women's 57kg)
Big names yet to qualify: Sonia Lather, Kavinder Bisht
The path to qualification: A total of nine boxers - five men and four women - booked their place in Tokyo at the Asia Oceania Olympic qualifiers that concluded on Wednesday. Although this already assures India of a record number of participants at the Tokyo Games - the previous record was 8 (seven men and one woman) at the 2012 Olympics - India still has the opportunity to qualify more athletes.
That opportunity will come at the World Olympic qualifiers to be held in Paris between 13th and 20th May. While the Asia- Oceania Olympic qualifying tournament had already been postponed (from Wuhan to Amman, Jordan) owing to the spread of the COVID-19 virus, there has been no subsequent suspension or postponing of boxing qualifiers. The European Olympic qualification tournament is currently ongoing in London.
Wrestling
Number of athletes qualified: 4 including Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat
Number of athletes who remain to be qualified:14 (3 men's freestyle categories, 6 Greco-Roman categories, 5 women's freestyle events)
Big names yet to qualify: Sushil Kumar, Sakshi Malik, Pooja Dhanda and Divya Kakran
The path to qualification: India has qualified four wrestlers - three men and one woman-- so far for the Olympics. All of the Olympic quotas were won at the 2019 Wrestling World championships that were held in Nur Sultan in August last year.
India subsequently had a chance to qualify further athletes at the Asian Olympic qualifiers but that tournament has been twice postponed. The Event was originally supposed to take place in Xi'an China but after the outbreak of COVID-19, the competition was shifted to Kygyzstan and scheduled to be conducted from March 27 to 29. That competition has once again been postponed and is now expected to be conducted in May.
Apart from the Asian Qualifiers, Indian athletes had another chance to earn quotas at the World qualifiers, but that tournament - initially scheduled to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria between April 30- May 2 has now been postponed until early June.
Weightlifting
Number of athletes India has qualified: 0
Number of athletes India could potentially qualify: 2 (owing to penalties for past dope tests)
Big names yet to qualify: Mirabai Chanu and Jeremy Lalrinnunga
The path to qualification: India has so far qualified no athletes for the Olympics. Qualification for the weightlifting events depended on the position of the athlete on the IWF ranking list on April 30th 2020.
However, athletes also needed to compete across three types of events - rated gold, silver and bronze - over three periods in order to earn ranking points. To qualify, the weightlifter must have competed in at least one event in each of the three periods, have competed in at least six events overall, and have competed in at least one gold-level event and one other gold or silver-level event.
The best results in each of three periods (1 November 2018 - 30 April 2019; 1 May 2019 - 31 October 2019; 1 November 2019 - 30 April 2020) would be considered for the ranking along with the overall best result. These rankings though would be disrupted owing to the cancellations of the Asian Championships, and subsequently the European and African championships - originally scheduled to be held across the month of April.
As the continental championships were categorised as Gold events, they would have contributed significantly to the ranking points. There has been no information given by the IWF on whether the postponement of the continental qualifiers would cause a change in the calculation of the the ranking points.
Shooting
Number of athletes India has qualified:15
Number of athletes who potentially could be qualified: 4 (one each in men's 25m pistol, men's trap, women's trap and women's skeet)
Big names yet to earn a qualifying quota: Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Anish Bhanwala
The path to qualification: India has earned 15 quota spots in the shooting events at the 2020 Olympics, only behind China (25), USA (21) and Russia (18) in terms of quotas won. Indian can no longer win any direct quotas at any competition - the only tournaments which offer quotas are the European Shotgun championships and the European Olympic qualifying tournament. However Indian shooters can still earn an Olympic ticket in each of the events that India has still not won any quota in (25m men's pistol, men's trap, women's trap and women's skeet) on the basis of their ISSF ranking on May 31st - the rule being that the highest-ranked shooter, from a country that does not have a berth in any of the twelve individual events, will obtain a direct Olympic quota place through the World Rankings. The cancellation of tournaments - such as the World Cup in India - originally scheduled to be held in March, initially came to mean that Indian shooters will not be able to do much to boost their ranking points. With the World Cup tentatively postponed to May, Indian shooters can still earn points that could affect their final ranking once the Olympic qualification period comes to an end.