With less than a week to the opening of the Tokyo games, officials in Izumisano City have announced that a Ugandan weightlifter, Julius Ssekitoleko, has reportedly gone missing.
Authorities were searching for the 20-year-old, who failed to show up for a coronavirus test and was not in his hotel room, host city Izumisano said in a statement.
Uganda’s delegation had arrived in Japan last month, headed for a pre-Games training camp in Izumisano, in Osaka region.
Salim Musoke Ssenkungu, President of the Ugandan Weightlifting Federation, told AFP that Ssekitoleko had been training “very hard” for his first Olympic weightlifting competition but was told this week that he would not be allowed to compete and had to return home.
“If someone is there in Japan and is assuming he is going to compete but then gets bad news, of course he is going to be upset,” Ssenkungu said.
The young athlete had recently won a bronze in the Africa Weightlifting Championships and was considered experienced despite his youth.
“He’s not from a rich family so it took a lot of interest and energy from him to be successful,” Ssenkungu said.
