new delhi the covid19 pandemic has impacted the future of several athletes participating in youth and junior level events in terms of getting through their choice of colleges based on sports quota and employment opportunities in government departments with the subjunior junior and senior national championships across all sporting disciplines cancelled for this year owing to the pandemic several athletes belonging to such age groups have been left ruing missed opportunitiesthese promising athletes who would have participated in their last youth and junior nationals this year before graduating to the senior level will become ineligible to compete in such agegroup tournaments next year that would mean no sports quota admission in colleges and entrylevel government jobs based on the participation certificateso to help such talented athletes in their hour of need the national sports federations nsfs have written to the sai to provide agerelaxation to junior sportspersons up to 202122 so that they would remain eligible to participate in youth and junior nationals next year the first among them is the indian weightlifting federation iwlf which has called for the formulation of a policy by the indian olympic association ioa to offer agerelaxation to athletes who would otherwise become ineligible to competeits emphasised that medal prospect athletes who are on the brink of their last participation in youth and junior in the year 202021 will lose the opportunity to finish on victory podium and prospect of getting employment in various government departments iwlf wrote to sai dg sandip pradhan