OLYMPICS
Tokyo ‘best prepared’ city
A year before hosting the Olympics, Tokyo is better prepared than any other city in that has hosted the Games, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said yesterday. Bach came to Tokyo to attend several events marking one year until the opening ceremony in the almost-completed National Stadium. Only three Olympic venues remain to be finished. About 3.22 million tickets were sold during the first domestic sales phase last month, while more than 200,000 people have applied to be volunteers in an indication of the building excitement.
Photo: EPA-EFE
BOXING
Changes to Hall of Fame
The International Boxing Hall of Fame is making changes to its voting process, shortening the retirement time for consideration and creating two categories for female fighters. The categories for female boxers are Trailblazer, boxers whose last bout was no later than 1988, and Modern, those whose last contest came no earlier than 1989. Female and male boxers must be retired for at least three years before the end of the calendar year in which voting takes place, meaning that boxers who last fought in 2016 are now eligible for consideration.
MANAGEMENT
Cowboys top richest list
The Dallas Cowboys top Forbes’ list of the world’s most valuable sports clubs for the fourth straight year as English Premier League giants Manchester United slipped four places to sixth. In figures released on Tuesday, Forbes pegged the value of the Cowboys at US$5 billion. The NFL club generate twice as much sponsorship and seating revenue at their AT&T Stadium than any other team, the publication said. The MLB’s New York Yankees jumped from fifth to second, their value coming in at US$4.6 billion. Twenty-six of the NFL’s 32 teams appear on the list of 50, while the Yankees are among seven MLB teams to feature. La Liga giants Real Madrid (US$4.24 billion) and Barcelona (US$4.02 billion), and the NBA’s New York Knicks (US$4 billion) round out the top five. Manchester United saw their value drop from US$4.12 billion to US$3.18 billion.
SOCCER
Player reverses coming out
A Twitter user who claimed to be an anonymous English Football League Championship player intending to come out as gay has reversed his decision, saying he is “not strong enough to do this.” Having previously declared his intention to hold a news conference yesterday at which he would reveal his identity after a series of tweets about his experiences, @FootballerGay on Tuesday posted two messages before deleting the account that had amassed more than 50,000 followers. Former England striker Gary Lineker and Burton Albion forward Marvin Sordell were among those to publicly express their support for the player, who is believed to be under the age of 23 and currently playing in a Championship club. Justin Fashanu remains the only British male player to have publicly come out while playing in the Football League, in 1990.
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
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later