Fresh from being awarded a record fifth FIFA Ballon d’Or, Lionel Messi was on Tuesday named as a global ambassador for the Dubai World Expo in 2020.
“Lionel Messi’s performances on the football pitch bring people together, and as a result, his influence reaches far beyond it,” Dubai World Expo general manager Reem al-Hashimy said in a statement.
“He is the ideal person to be our first global ambassador. He overcame youthful health challenges to achieve his dreams of international excellence through hard work, making him an inspiration. He is perfectly placed to reach out to young people around the world, bringing them together to join us as we work toward hosting our World Expo in 2020.”
Dubai plans to recruit other ambassadors for its world fair from a variety of fields, including sport, arts, music, culture and the media.
Argentina and Barcelona superstar Messi, 28, is widely regarded as one of the top soccer players of all time, and by many as the best.
On Monday he was picked ahead of rival Cristiano Ronaldo to win the FIFA Ballon d’Or for last year.
With Barcelona, Messi has won four UEFA Champions League titles, seven La Liga titles and three Copa del Rey titles, while helping Argentina win Olympic gold in 2008.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
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