New Zealand's Laurel Hubbard is the first-ever transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympics.
Laurel Hubbard/Photo credits: Google
Laurel Hubbard: After long hours of mulling over which athlete should be picked for the Olympics, finally, officials zeroed on their choice to New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard. He has become the first-ever transgender athlete picked to compete at an Olympics.
After qualifying requirements that were recently modified, he has been selected for the women’s weightlifting team for Tokyo 2020.
Earlier, she had faced competition with men before revealing as transgender in 2013.
Expressing her happiness in a statement issued by the New Zealand Olympic Committee on Monday, Hubbard said that she was grateful and humbled by the kindness and support that has been given to him by many New Zealanders.
She will face tough competition in the women’s 87-kg weightlifting category.
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The International Olympic Committee changed its selection rules for transgender. According to the rule, a transgender is allowed to compete as a woman if their testosterone levels are below a certain threshold.
Following qualifying this rule, the 43-year-old became eligible to compete at the Olympics.
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Being ranked as number one, she is among the top athletes in the world under her category.
Following qualifying this rule, the 43-year-old became eligible to compete at the Olympics.
Taking her competitive spirit, discipline and aggressiveness into account, it can be said that she has a good chance at winning a medal. The reason behind his straight win is that several others won’t compete due to rules by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF). According to the rule, there should be only one lifter per category from each country.
Controversy erupted right after Hubbard’s participation in the last competitions.
She won a gold medal at the Pacific Games in Samoa in 2019 after defeating an athlete from the host nation. This didn’t go well with some section of the society triggering an outrage.
Some agreed with Samoa’s weightlifting coach who pointed out that the New Zealander’s selection for Tokyo has started allowing athletes to dope. But he feared that this attitude could again cost his country a medal.
