Momota, Park face hurdles on Rio path
Print Edition
JAPANESE badminton trailblazer Kento Momota is set to miss the Rio de Janeiro Olympics later this year after admitting to gambling at an illegal casino, local media reported yesterday.
The 21-year-old world No. 4, 65th-ranked Kenichi Tago and other teammates from their Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corp sides said they wagered at the Tokyo casino, which had since closed after police raids, Kyodo News reported.
Momota became the first Japanese to win the Badminton World Federation Super Series Masters Final in December and also got the Asian nation a first men’s singles world championship medal when he claimed bronze in Jakarta last August.
Nippon Badminton Association secretary general Kinji Zeniya said it would “probably be impossible” for the former world junior champion to compete at the August 5-21 Games if the allegations were proven.
Meanwhile, the South Korean Olympic committee has blocked former Olympic swimming champion Park Tae-hwan from competing in Rio even though he finished serving a doping suspension in March.
The Olympic committee said yesterday it reached a decision to uphold its rules that ban athletes suspended for doping from competing with the national team for an additional three years after the end of their suspensions. “We reached a conclusion that revising national team selection rules for a particular individual is inappropriate,” the committee said in a statement, adding that the decision is irreversible.
Park’s camp had argued that the rules, introduced by the KOC in 2014, were excessive.
The 26-year-old Park, who won the gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is coming off an 18-month ban after testing positive for testosterone in an out-of-competition doping test.
Park, who also won silver in Beijing and added two more silvers at 2012 London, remains the only South Korean to win an Olympic medal in swimming.
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