Mirabai Chanu and other weightlifters on Monday requested sports minister Kiren Rijiju to allow resumption of training at the earliest, insisting that their practice hall is big enough to ensure social distancing.

Training is suspended across Sports Authority of India (SAI) centres since mid-March to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rijiju interacted with the weightlifters, who are currently stationed at the National Institute of Sports, Patiala, over a video conference, seeking their feedback on resumption of training. “We requested him to resume training as soon as possible because we need weight training. We have been working out but weight training is necessary for us,” Mirabai said.

Echoing Mirabai’s concern, national coach Vijay Sharma said social distancing can be ensured at the training hall in Patiala.

“It’s been almost two months since training was stopped. All the muscle mass has finished. The campus is sealed, no one is coming inside or going out, so we can resume training,” Sharma said.

“Our training hall is spacious we can easily maintain a five-metre distance between each weightlifter. We have 16 platforms and there are only nine weightlifters so we can easily maintain social distancing while training,” he added. Rijiju said the views expressed by the lifters will be used to create a Standard Operating Procedure for training. Currently, nine weightlifters, including Mirabai, Youth Olympics gold-medallist Jeremy Lalrinnunga and two-time Commonwealth Games champion Sathish Sivalingam, are cooped up in Patiala.

Recognition till Sept.

The sports ministry, meanwhile, granted recognition to 54 national federations till September this year, continuing to leave out the governing bodies of archery, golf and gymnastics while dropping paralympics and rowing from the list. The ministry granted fresh recognition to the All India Carrom Federation.

The Paralympic Committee of India (PCI), Rowing Federation of India (RFI) and School Games Federation of India (SGFI) were the ones denied fresh recognition.

While recognition to NSFs is usually annual, this time the ministry has decided to offer it only till September this year, prompting questions from the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Narinder Batra. “Why September 2020 and why not till December 2020,” Batra questioned.