Mandy Bujold (Photo Credit: Reuters)
Mandy Bujold missed qualifying competitions in 2018 and 2019, when she was pregnant after which on maternity depart.
- AFP
- Last Updated:May 18, 2021, 22:57 IST
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The Canadian minister for sports activities has requested the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to rethink its determination to exclude boxer Mandy Bujold from the Tokyo Games, in a letter obtained by AFP on Tuesday.
The IOC refused to grant the two-time Pan American and 11-time Canadian nationwide champion a spot on the Games as she’d missed qualifying competitions in 2018 and 2019, when she was pregnant after which on maternity depart. Two more moderen qualifying bouts have been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The determination to grow to be a mom in 2018 ought to under no circumstances penalize Ms. Bujold and stop her from taking part within the Olympic Games,” Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault wrote in the May 13 letter to the IOC’s president Thomas Bach and board.
In it, he “asks the IOC to reconsider its decision to exclude Mandy Bujold from the Tokyo Games.”
“The exclusion of Canadian boxer Mandy Bujold from the Olympics sends a destructive message to feminine athletes: you will be an athlete or a mom, however not each,” the minister tweeted on Tuesday.
Bujold, 33, had finished fifth at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
She asked the IOC at the end of April to review its selection criteria for the upcoming Tokyo Games, while also appealing its decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
She told CBC Sports she hopes to podium before retiring from the sport after the Games.
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