#2016 Rio Olympic Corruption Scandal | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

argumentl · 3 years

Text

The Freedom of Expression, radio version - Ep.34, May 2016 - Death-row art, Bear cub mistaken for puppy, Japan's place in the World Press Freedom Index.

Kaoru starts by saying its the end of May, so the weather is getting a lot hotter, and the air-con in the studio is extremely patchy. It gets very hot randomly, and a few episodes ago, he felt so hot recording the show when the air-con was playing up.

Kaoru's first news is that an art exhibition showcasing artwork produced by death row inmates will be given a second run, after making headlines the first time in 2013. Kaoru picks up on one piece from the exhibition, drawn by Hayashi Masumi, a woman facing the death sentence for putting poison in a pot of curry at a festival in 1998, killing four people and injuring many more. Her artwork consists of orange and black colours, and resembles 4 figures standing in the hanging chamber, with the ropes positioned above thier heads. Joe says Hayashi actually pleaded not guilty to the crime she was charged with. He explains that according to Hayashi's lawyer Yasuda Yoshihiro (a prominent anti-death penalty activist), Hayashi is on a mental decline due to her continued isolation from the outside world. This makes Joe think that this artwork differs from regular art, as it comes with quite a deep message from the inside. He comments that the artisic skill in the pictures is actually quite high. If you were unaware of the exhibition's theme, you would never guess the art was all made by death row inmates. It creates a brief sense that these people who have comitted such terrible crimes aren't really all that different from the rest of us. Kaoru agrees with Joe, and says that within that isolation the prisoners must have been able to concentrate quite closely on the art, it is quite detailed. He feels curious about how it feels to communicate with the outside world in this way. Joe says the exhibition will be held in Hiroshima, which is difficult to get to from Tokyo, but he wants to go in person and see the artwork with his own eyes, instead of just seeing it online. Going back to Hayashi's picture, Kaoru wonders why there are 4 figures in it, as 4 people would never be executed in a row like this in reality. He also says that these pieces of art have all passed checks in order to be released for public viewing, but there must have been more pieces that did not pass the checks. He wants to see those ones too.

Next, they welcome Dobashi for the Tokyo Sports corner. Dobashi is tired after being assigned to help out with covering the Rio de Janeiro Olympics by Hiranabe. Joe says Hiranabe is always too consumed by his own scandals to help out with stuff like this.

Dobashi's first story is about a man in China's Yunnan province who raised an Asian Black bear cub, believing it to a dog. He found it in the mountains and felt sorry for it so brought it home as his pet. When it suddenly started to grow massive he informed the authorities, and discovered it was a bear. The bear was returned to the forest after this. Kaoru says its a good thing the man realised before the bear got any bigger. He says he saw a video of the bear (still in the man's home) eating, and it really was eating a huge amount. Joe says this is way above the level that any dog would eat. Kaoru thinks the bear did look very cute when it was little though. He then says that he recently saw some news from Japan about a bear coming down from the mountains and entering the house of a celebrity. Dobashi, slightly flustered, says he hasn't heard that news, he has been too busy with the Olympics. Kaoru says he also heard something about someone in China mistaking a big dog for a lion. He's not sure whether this is true though. Dobashi then brings up the zoologist Hata Masanori, also know as Mutsugorō, who had raised some lion cubs, and then nearly got eaten by one of them after it grew. Joe says there is tonnes of crazy legends surrounding Mutsugorō, he is a super interesting/eccentric guy.

Dobashi gets serious for his next story, which is that Japan has fallen 11 places to #72 out of 180 countries in the 2016 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by the NPO Reporters Without Borders. Dobashi says this is probably due to the enforcement of the State Secrecy Law, after which the media has lost a lot of its independence and autonomy. #1 in the ranking was Finland, and #180 was Eritrea. #179 was North Korea. Joe says that just before the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Japan was ranking at about #10. Japan actually uses a Press club system, which to non-Japanese, appears quite restrictive anyway. But since the nuclear accident in 2011 and the way in which it was reported, Japan's ranking has plummeted. Along with the recent State Secrecy Law, and the comments from Minister Takaichi about shutting down politically biased content, the ranking has fallen further. Joe said he once interviewed the Tokyo bureau chief of the New York Times, Martin Fackler about this topic. Fackler said that although the American press is not very free itself, the main difference from the Japanese press is that in Japan, journalists tend to work for one newspaper for thier whole career, whereas in America journalists are overwhelming freelance. Japanese journalists are almost like 'salarymen', competing for promotion within thier own organization. The top level positions in Japanese media organizations come with huge salaries compared to overseas. For this reason, journalists in Japan strive never to write an unpopular article. Fackler thinks the ability to stand up to this kind of system is fading in Japan. Joe wonders what the purpose of media reporting is in light of this reality (i.e. desire to spread news honestly, or just a means of getting closer to a high income).

Kami then intervenes and asks if Hiranabe's salary is high. Dobashi says his is low. Kami reminds them that Hiranabe spent ¥150000 on champagne, and Kaoru then says that despite this, Hiranabe hasn't yet paid his taxi fee to get to the InterFM studio, he asks Dobashi to pay it. Joe thinks its strange that Hiranabe can pay that much for champagne, and at the same time not be able to afford his taxi fee. Kami reminds them of the teeth straightening treatment Hiranaba was apparently also paying for a few weeks ago. He thinks Dobashi must also be getting a high salary. Joe asks Kami what he did in Golden Week, and Kami says he had to work his night shifts because his salary is low.

Getting back on topic, Kaoru questions whether the government is trying to make fools of the people, something about the situation doesn't feel right. It looks like they are taking a too conservative stance, and banning things just to avoid dealing with problems. Joe comments that Tokyo Sports does a good job in the face of this. Dobashi says thats because no topic is off limits for Tokyo Sports. He also says its good to be aware of holding power in this sphere, as too much of it can become a hotbed for corruption. Kami joins them again and says the World Press Freedom Index probably didn't take Tokyo Sports into account. Dobashi replies that Tokyo Sports has no tabboos.

To finish, Kaoru reminds listeners of the new jingle campaign, and plugs the new single and the DVD/Bluray. He then says he is about to start rehersals for Mode of Vulgar, which is sold out. Lastly, he says he will give Dobashi a sticker in exchange for more juicy news in future episodes. Dobashi says he will look for the most tabboo stories he can find.

Songs - Dir en grey/'Yokusou ni dreambox' aruiwa seijuku no rinen to tsumetai ame.

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #radio

9 notes · View notes

globalnewsafrica · 6 years

Text

Former Sports CS Wario, Kipchoge Keino arrested

In Summary -Wario, who is currently Kenya’s ambassador to Austria, is set to face graft charges. -The officials are also charged with purchasing tickets worth Ksh.22 million which were not used by athletes or officials in the trip that was full of joyriders. -Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji says he is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to charge the officials.

Former Sports…

View On WordPress

#2016 Rio Olympic Corruption Scandal #Hassan Wario #Kipchoge Keino #Richard Ekai

0 notes

isisandapollosfantasysex-blog · 5 years

Link

https://youtu.be/_UBGbLNzaSI #HEADLINES: SATANIC DEVIL WORSHIPING PORN QUEEN KATY PERRY BACKS THE ILLUMINATI HORROR SHOW OF HILLARY ‘MIND CONTROLLED’ CLINTON IN WHO RUNS AMERICA CAUSE ITS NOT THE PEOPLE.

https://youtu.be/nhFxsyFOYkM KATY PERRYS TITS

https://youtu.be/jdblVLl0apg KATY PERRY & HILLARY CLINTON EXPOSED AS ANTI CHRISTS CALLING FOR KATY PERRY TO BE BANNED FROM RIO OLYMPICS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3715105/Katy-Perry-jets-NYC-boyfriend-Orlando-Bloom-supported-videotaping-Democratic-convention-performance-audience.html

KATY PERRY EXPOSED IN KATYCAT MIND CONTROL BILLBOARD CHARTS ARE RIGGED KATY PERRY VOTE RIGGING SCHOCKER:

💅👀😍Vote for ‪#‎RISE to be played on the @965ampradio radio station! It's important cz if we win they'll play it, which'll help it to rise on charts next week! VOTE: http://bit.ly/2aH4DwL 😍👀💅

TRICK: For multiple vote, Plz click on 'return to poll' after voting everytime & vote again like 30x times! Then wait 3 mins & do the same! Share.💅💅💅

This corruption scandal was discovered on KATY PERRY WORLDWIDE OFFICIAL FAN PAGE on Facebook where the KATYCAT KING was so disgusted that he turned whistleblower now share the way that corrupt Katy Perry manipulates the unverified charts for record sales.

KATY PERRY’S HUSBANDS EXPOSES KATY PERRY AS PEDOPHILE FRONT:

John Rumary

Dear Sir,

I am enclosing http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3842094/Katy-Perry-reveals-children-big-focus-helping-deliver-sister-s-second-kid.html#v-5602523695159162564

KATY PERRY TWIN FLAME WITH GOD HAS PUBLIC AFFAIR WHILST MARRIED TO GOD AND GOES PUBLIC ABOUT THE ADULTERY WITH ORLANDO BLOOM THE ANTI-CHRIST http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3842094/Katy-Perry-reveals-children-big-focus-helping-deliver-sister-s-second-kid.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailceleb#ixzz4NMZUc5BD

ANYONE with information on these 2 speccy characters from HELL #Korlando #ORLaty http://www.twitter.com/@KabloomUpdates contact in confidence~: [email protected] ~ KATY PERRY has been reported for online child sex abuse & mk ultra monarch mind controlling fans rigging charts & awards ^ buying 'follows' & 'likes': if you have suffered at the Katy Perry org contact: [email protected]

Warm regards,

TAYLOR SWIFT CHARITABLE TRUST UK

Fbook + Twitter: @TSCTUK

[email protected]

http://www.twitter.com/@Orlaty1 Follow Visit: http://katyperryantichrist.tumblr.com

http://satansslutkatyperryexposed.tumblr.com

http://katyperryexposesherself.tumblr.com

[email protected]

https://www.facebook.com/KatyPerryColombiaOficial/videos/1236760729703702/ video Audrey Hepburn humanitarian award UNICEF dec 2016

katy stars in a sex education video

#taylurking #taylor swift #katy #katyperry #katty perry #katheryn elizabeth hudson #katheryn #katheryn huds

1 note · View note

thisdaynews · 5 years

Text

The 2010s - the decade that shook sport

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-2010s-the-decade-that-shook-sport/

The 2010s - the decade that shook sport

Since joining the BBC in 2010, sports editor Dan Roan has covered many of the biggest sports news stories of the past decade.

Here he revisits some of the off-field issues that have defined a remarkable era and shifted sport’s landscape in a way never seen before.

Doping

Such was his dominance on the bike, his superstardom off it, and the sophistication of the doping regime he led, Lance Armstrong remains one of sport’s most infamous drugs cheats.

On the one hand, the demise of the disgraced American cyclist and cancer survivor in late 2012 was indicative of a sport in the grip of a doping culture.

But the groundbreaking pursuit of Armstrong by the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) seemed to prove that no-one was too big to bring down. His TV confession to cheating his way to all seven of his Tour de France titles the following year shattered sport’s greatest fairytale, and provided one of the sporting decade’s most defining moments.

From Tiger Woods’ televised apology for serial philandering in early 2010 to Oscar Pistorius’ murder conviction six years later, the 2010s bore witness to some staggering falls from grace. But the sense was that Armstrong’s would shift the landscape like no other because his offending directly impacted his sport.

But any hope that the suspicion surrounding cycling would lift as a legacy of Armstrong’s downfall soon faded.

Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles in 2012

Having competed for the first time in 2010, Team Sky went on to dominate cycling in the years that followed. At the turn of the decade, no British rider had ever won the Tour de France. Since then, three have done so, with Chris Froome managing the feat four times.

For several years, ‘marginal gains’ was credited with transforming British cycling’s fortunes on both the road and the track, where it became the driving-force behind successive Olympic triumphs.

But during the second half of the decade, Team Sky came under mounting scrutiny over how they managed to win so much amid a series of controversies.

Among them was the failure to keep basic medical records, Froome being cleared of wrongdoing after an adverse analytical finding for salbutamol, and revelations over separate unresolved scandals over two medical deliveries; the first a mystery jiffybag for Sir Bradley Wiggins, the second a batch of testosterone to the national velodrome.

By the time of the nadir when a parliamentary committee accused the team of “crossing the ethical line” over Sir Bradley Wiggins’ use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) in a damning 2018 report, some of the biggest names in British sport had been tainted, and its founding claim to be ‘whiter than white’ consigned to history. Sky withdrew its backing a few months later, the team only saved by the investment of Ineos, a major new power in British sport.

Team Sky and their riders always denied any wrongdoing and rejected accusations they had ever cheated their way to success. But a landmark medical tribunal to determine if former chief medic Dr Richard Freeman ordered testosterone to help an unnamed rider to cheat nine years ago will resume in 2020.

The rise and fall in reputation of the country’s most successful but controversial team has been one of the decade’s most significant sports stories. And decisive moments could still lie ahead.

Many other sports have suffered their own doping-related crises over the last 10 years of course, especially in athletics, where its most powerful figure, Lamine Diack, was banned for life for extorting money from cheats whose positive tests he helped to cover up.

The demise of the disgraced former IAAF president led to his British successor Lord Coe fighting to salvage his own reputation amid questions over both his judgement and association with Diack.

Despite a bruising period of intense scrutiny, the man credited with delivering London 2012 survived and has always denied any wrongdoing.

Another result of Diack’s downfall has been ongoing criminal investigations in France and Brazil into wider allegations of bribery connected to the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympic bids.

Diack will stand trial in Paris in 2020 on charges of corruption and money laundering.

Alberto Salazar (centre) coached Great Britain’s Mo Farah (right) to Olympic gold at London 2012

Given his long association with Britain’s most decorated track and field star Sir Mo Farah, and the hugely powerful sportswear giant Nike, legendary American coach Alberto Salazar’s four-year ban in the middle of the 2019 World Championships for various doping violations after a long Usada investigation was another highly damaging episode for the sport.

Amid intense scrutiny of its close relationship with the disgraced running guru, the scandal has plunged UK Athletics into the gravest crisis in its history, and amid fresh allegations and an appeal by Salazar, the story will rumble on well into 2020.

But when it comes to the sheer scale of cheating, the political power of the guilty party, and the ramifications of the fall-out, one scandal this decade is in a category all of its own.

In 2015 a World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report laid bare the details of a conspiracy like no other. Masterminded by the former head of Moscow’s anti-doping lab turned whistle-blower Dr Grigory Rodchenkov, Russia’s state-sponsored doping racket implicated 1,000 athletes across multiple sports and sabotaged successive Olympic Games – including London 2012 – now known as the dirtiest statistically in history – with more than 130 competitors since disqualified.

In the years that followed, more gory details have emerged, the scandal doing untold damage to the credibility of major institutions like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Wada, undermining the anti-doping system, eroding public trust, and dominating the build-up to both Rio 2016 and Pyeongchang 2018 – from which the Russian team were banned.

It now threatens to do the same to Tokyo 2020 with Russia recently hit with an unprecedented (but qualified) four-year ban from major international events after another audacious cover-up.

But with an appeal yet to be heard, and some athletes furious that an outright ban was avoided, it is clear that this crisis will extend well into the 2020s. Surely the greatest scandal sport has ever known.

Media playback is not supported on this device

Grigory Rodchenkov speaks to BBC sports editor Dan Roan in February 2018

Corruption

Another sporting mega-story the past decade will always be remembered for was Fifa’s corruption scandal.

Allegations of skulduggery had hung around world football’s governing body for years. But it was only in the 2010s that the people at the heart of the organisation faced accusations amid a crisis that shook Fifa to its core.

Nine years after it stunned the world by awarding the right to host its flagship event to the tiny desert-state of Qatar, Fifa is still trying to recover from allegations surrounding how exactly the country won the vote, the human cost of building the infrastructure for the event, and the disruption a first winter World Cup will cause.

Five years after that vote came those dramatic dawn police raids with numerous Fifa officials arrested in Zurich on corruption charges amid a sprawling FBI investigation into tens of millions of dollars’ worth of bribes connected to marketing and TV contracts in the Americas.

This – along with the subsequent downfalls of Fifa’s long-reigning president Sepp Blatter and one-time heir apparent Michel Platini shortly afterwards over a “disloyal payment” – brought the organisation to its knees. Both men, along with the Qatar bid, have always denied wrongdoing.

But more than any other, the scandal came to symbolise a number of issues; sub-standard governance across sport, the greed and unchecked excess at the top of world football, and the vast wealth generated by deals with sponsors and TV companies.

The exploitation of sport as a form of ‘soft-power’ by countries like Qatar with questionable human-rights records to furnish their image was nothing new. But the 2010 vote – which also included handing the 2018 World Cup to President Vladimir Putin’s Russia of course – came to symbolise sport’s increasing willingness to do deals with repressive regimes. It is noticeable that the term ‘sportswashing’ only entered the sporting lexicon in the last few years.

Fifa will argue that a legacy of its corruption scandal has been an overhaul of its leadership, and key governance reforms.

But with criminal investigations into the bidding processes for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups continuing in Switzerland and France, fresh jail sentences and life bans handed to former officials, and almost three years still until Qatar hosts what is set to be the most controversial sports event in history, it will be a long time – if ever – before Fifa’s credibility is truly restored.

Rule breaking

The 2010s have provided many other sporting scandals involving allegations of cheating, deceit or rule breaking.

In 2011 three Pakistani cricketers were jailed for their roles in an astonishing spot-fixing scandal, which had exploded the previous year, forcing the game to confront the threat of gambling-related corruption.

More recently, rugby union was shaken to its core by the 35-point deduction handed to Saracens – the English club game’s dominant force – for breaching salary cap regulations.

Meanwhile, Manchester City – the Premier League’s dominant force in the 2010s – are waiting to discover if Uefa finds them guilty of misleading European football’s governing body over financial fair play rules. City deny wrongdoing but if they lose the case, a sensational ban from the competition they covet more than any – the Champions League – could be their punishment.

Bury were the first team to drop out of the EFL since Maidstone’s liquidation in 1992

Bury became the first club to be expelled from the Football League since 1992 when they failed to provide proof of funds, their demise a stark symbol of mounting concerns over the sustainability of football finances.

But in terms of resonance, perhaps one sports scandal this decade stands out.

Australian cricket’s ball-tampering ‘sandpaper plot’ in 2018 led to a series of teary resignations in front of the cameras, long bans and an unprecedented bout of soul-searching – by both the country, which suddenly faced an identity crisis, and a sport that feared its fabled values had been abandoned in favour of a win-at-all-costs culture.

Technology

The decade has seen rapid changes in technology that have affected sports in ways few predicted 10 years ago.

Controversy over whether advancements in sports equipment unfairly enhance athletes’ performances is nothing new. But the debate has been reignited by mounting concern over the latest version of Nike’s carbon-fibre plated Vaporfly running shoes – reinforced by Eliud Kipchoge’s historic sub-two hour marathon while wearing them – and then Brigid Kosgei’s obliteration of the women’s marathon record in a similar pair the following day.

A few months out from the Tokyo Olympics, athletics is facing tough questions over the tension between the inevitable quest for innovation and the core principle of fair competition. Both the IAAF’s rules and the record books are being challenged in a way not seen for years. And those in power are under intensifying pressure to do something about it.

In a bid to avoid on-field injustices and overcome human error in officiating, sports have tried to harness broadcasting advancements over the last decade.

Some, like goal-line technology in football which was approved in 2012, has proved a success. But others, most notably the video assistant referee system (VAR), has been hugely controversial, especially in the Premier League, where its first season of use has descended into farce over marginal offside decisions, sparking fury from fans and managers.

More than any other, the VAR crisis sums up sport’s struggle to navigate the inexorable march of technology without relinquishing the soul and spontaneity that cultivates a lifelong attachment with so many fans across the world. A question that is both technical and existential, and one that must be answered satisfactorily in the near future if sport is to maintain its importance for a new generation of fans in the 2020s.

Gender

Dina Asher-Smith won three medals – including 200m gold – at the 2019 World Championships in Doha

The 2010s has been a game-changing decade in terms of the profile, popularity and perception of women’s sport.

Certain key moments stand out: the trailblazing London 2012 victories of Jessica Ennis and Nicola Adams, Fallon Sherrock making history by beating male opponents in darts’ World Championship, Bryony Frost becoming the first woman to ride a Grade One winner at Cheltenham, Dina Asher-Smith winning Britain’s first global women’s sprint title and Simone Biles redefining gymnastics.

The record TV audiences that watched the groundbreaking 2019 Fifa Women’s World Cup felt like a watershed moment. As had the inspiration provided by Team GB’s gold-medal winning hockey players at Rio 2016, England’s World Cup-winning cricketers in 2017, and their triumphant netball team at the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

Then there was the emergence of US football star Megan Rapinoe as sport’s leading voice on equality and women’s rights, the face of a new era of athlete activism. The Commonwealth Games vowing to make Birmingham 2022 the first major multi-sport event to have more women’s than men’s medal events is another milestone.

But while there has been clear progress in the 2010s, equality of opportunity, pay, media coverage, grassroots participation and boardroom representation still feels decades away from being realised.

Media playback is not supported on this device

Megan Rapinoe on goal celebrations, finding her voice and Donald Trump

The 2010s will also be remembered for the decade-long saga of Caster Semenya, a story that continues to divide opinion in sport like little else.

In 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) ruled in favour of a hugely controversial IAAF rule that forced the South African runner – and other athletes with differences in sexual development (DSD) – to take hormone-limiting drugs if she wanted to compete in the middle-distance events she had dominated for years. After a long legal battle, Semenya pulled out of the World Championships.

For Semenya’s supporters, the eligibility regulation was an appalling breach of human rights and a discriminatory act of sexism and racism designed to target her. For others, it was a necessary and proportionate step to protect women’s sport and fair competition.

But whatever one’s perspective, there is no doubt that the debate has confronted sport with uncomfortable questions around gender identity and human biology, the suitability of sport’s traditional male and female categories, the reliability of the medical science on which the IAAF’s rule relies, perceptions of womanhood and sport’s complex relationship with the law.

With the IAAF – and other sports – now intending to apply the eligibility rules to transgender as well as DSD athletes, the controversy will extend well into the 2020s.

And with Semenya’s appeal yet to be heard in the Swiss courts, one of the most important and contentious sports stories of the decade still has some way to run.

Racism

Buoyed by the success of a diverse, multiracial Team GB, the hope was that the London 2012 Games – the biggest sporting event ever hosted in Britain – would act as a catalyst for a more tolerant and progressive sporting decade.

Yet just a few years on, football finds itself in the grip of a new racism crisis, with increasing incidents of abuse at both matches and on social media. As we enter the 2020s, the reasons for this alarming trend, and how to best tackle it, have become arguably the biggest question the sport faces.

In truth, the issue has reared its head at regular intervals throughout the 2010s with a series of high-profile scandals; Luis Suarez in 2011 and then John Terry in 2012 both banned by the FA for racially abusing opponents. And former England women’s manager Mark Sampson being found to have made racist comments towards striker Eni Aluko in 2017 – having initially been cleared – threatened to engulf the entire FA.

An investigation into racially discriminatory remarks Mark Sampson made to two England players, for which the FA apologised, was then subject to a parliamentary inquiry

But the sense is that with football reflecting a society that has become more divided and polarised since the Brexit vote in 2016, the scourge of abuse by those attending matches has returned in the last two years, and is getting worse, shattering the widely-held assumption at the end of the last decade that such racism was no longer a major issue.

This trend has been mirrored abroad where the abuse of England’s players in Bulgaria felt like a watershed moment in sport’s long battle with discrimination.

Some blame the rise of far-right political parties and nationalism across Europe, and the sanctions handed out by football authorities, while others want social media companies to do more to curb racist behaviour on their platforms. But if there is a positive to come out of all this, it is a new era of athlete activism.

By making a stand against racism, Raheem Sterling reminded us that this was the decade when some of the world’s most famous athletes stopped being afraid of expressing an opinion on politics and society for fear of upsetting sponsors or fans, and harnessed social media and their vast influence to try to make a difference.

In doing so, Sterling has followed in the footsteps of trailblazing NFL star Colin Kaepernick, whose kneeled protests during pre-match United States anthems to highlight police brutality and racial injustice sparked a national debate.

Others have joined him on range of issues: NBA players LeBron James and Steph Curry on race, footballer Mesut Ozil and rugby’s Sonny Bill Williams on the persecution of the Uighur community in China, tennis great Serena Williams and Rapinoe on women’s rights, athlete Allyson Felix on maternity policies. The list is getting longer.

For decades, athletes had been told to ‘stick to sports’. In the 2010s they finally found their voice.

Athlete welfare

At the turn of the last decade, the only aspect of Britain’s elite sporting culture that seemed to matter was performance.

Record success at successive Olympics and Paralympics after decades of disappointment secured the country’s status as a sporting powerhouse, and appeared to vindicate the ‘no-compromise’ strategy of all-powerful funding agency UK Sport, the body tasked with turning lottery money into medals.

Great Britain won 214 medals at the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games

But in the three-and-a-half years that have passed since Rio 2016, a series of bullying and discrimination scandals embroiling some of the country’s best-funded high-performance programmes has shown the risks of such an approach.

There has been the fear that in many cases, winning came at the expense of welfare and duty of care. The case of former sprint cyclist Jess Varnish – who claimed she had been the victim of discrimination when dropped from Team GB’s Olympic squad – was a defining moment.

The NFL’s landmark $765m compensation settlement with thousands of former players over brain disease linked to concussion in 2013 was another milestone. The case raising awareness of the dangers of head injuries in other contact sports, most obviously rugby and football, both of which were forced to conduct fresh research and reconsider their return to play protocols – or risk hugely damaging lawsuits of their own.

Until 2017 little thought was given to safeguarding in the mainstream media. But then – thanks to the courage of whistle-blowers like former Crewe player Andy Woodward – football’s appalling non-recent child sex abuse scandal was finally revealed.

The initial sense was that this was a tragic but isolated story. But soon it became clear Woodward was far from alone, the dark secret that football had harboured for so long finally laid bare. Amid hundreds of cases, a series of high-profile convictions over the last two years, and the long-running Sheldon inquiry into the scandal still to conclude, the FA’s gravest ever crisis will continue into the 2020s.

Ten years ago, few had heard of ex-Manchester City and Crewe coach Barry Bennell – since sentenced to 31 years for abusing young footballers. Or of Larry Nassar – the USA Gymnastics doctor convicted for abusing hundreds of athletes.

Sadly, these names now serve as stark reminders of the darkest side of sport.

Alongside many moments of great sporting triumph and inspiration, the 2010s have been a decade when sport has been brought into disrepute. Thanks to the courage of whistle-blowers and the work of investigative journalists, many injustices and failings have at least been exposed.

With many of these stories straddling the turn of the decade, the 2020s will reveal how prepared sport is to learn lessons, regain trust and recover its standing.

#shook #Sport

0 notes

urbangeographies · 7 years

Photo

AFTER THE OLYMPICS: Unfulfilled promises tarnish the “legacy”

The 2016 Rio Olympics were supposed to be the second of a one-two punch announcing Brazil's arrival as a world power through dominance in sports. But in many ways, the opposite unfolded. Timed with an embarrassing political corruption scandal and the largest economic crisis in Brazil's history, the hosting of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Games has resulted in a perfect storm of unfulfilled promises.

While 15 of the original 27 venues have hosted some sort of event since the Games, others sit largely abandoned, their decay and disrepair a constant reminder of what was meant to be. Even the iconic soccer stadium, the Maracanã, has been vandalized, and had its power shut off completely after amassing a $950,000 electric bill.

Deodoro Olympic Park, long hailed by Brazilian politicians and Olympic proponents as a path to upgrade one of Rio's poorer neighborhoods, is shuttered. The community pool that was supposed to come out of the canoe slalom course was closed in December and has yet to re-open. Brazil's Federal Court of Audit (TCU) reported last week that another abandoned pool, at the Deodoro Aquatics Center, is now covered in bugs, mud and rodent feces. A Deodoro elevator once used to lift fans over a busy road now leads to nowhere.

Ten miles away at the Olympic Park, things aren't much better. Earlier this month a fire from a flying lantern torched the roof of the Rio velodrome, badly damaging its Siberian Pine track. After the Games, the city solicited bids for private companies to run the park, but no one bid, leaving Brazil's Ministry of Sport with the task -- and expense. The maintenance alone will cost the government approximately $14 million this year. Rio's new mayor, Marcelo Crivella, has scrapped plans to turn the handball arena into four public schools. And the 31 towers that made up the athletes village, which were set to be transformed into luxury condos, now sit largely vacant...

Read the full story in ESPN (10 August 2017)

#rio #rio de janeiro #rio2016 #olympic games #megaevents #brazil #olympic legacy #highlight

34 notes · View notes

fa-cat · 5 years

Photo

Russia awaits sanctions from World Anti-Doping Agency

The World Anti-Doping Agency began a meeting Monday to judge the latest allegations of Russian corruption in international sports.

There is evidence to show that Russian authorities tampered with a Moscow laboratory database to hide hundreds of potential doping cases and falsely shift the blame onto whistleblowers, WADA investigators and the International Olympic Committee said last month.

Russia will likely again avoid a blanket ban from the Olympics, but the country faces having its flag and anthem banned at next year's Tokyo Games and at other major sporting events for the next four years.

Other four-year sanctions proposed by a WADA panel include excluding Russian athletes from major events unless they are not implicated in the evidence and barring the country from hosting, bidding for, or being awarded championships by world sports bodies.

''Flagrant manipulation'' of the Moscow lab data was ''an insult to the sporting movement worldwide,'' the IOC said last month.

Handing over a clean database to WADA was a key requirement for Russia to help bring closure to a scandal that has tainted the Olympics over the last decade.

Although the IOC has called for the strongest possible sanctions, it wants those sanctions directed at Russian state authorities rather than athletes or Olympic officials.

That position is opposed by most of WADA's athlete commission. It wants the kind of blanket ban Russia avoided for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games after a state-run doping program was exposed by media and WADA investigations after Russia hosted the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.

''This entire fiasco created by Russia has cheated far too many athletes of their dreams and rightful careers, for far too long,'' the WADA athlete panel said in a statement ahead of the meeting.

#WADA #Russia #Doping #IOC #Olympic #Tokyo Games #four years

0 notes

kevin-mok-blog · 5 years

Text

Blog #4: How Would The 2020 Japanese Olympic Games Reflects The International Conflicts

The Olympic Games is always the most remarkable global sporting competition, which was revived in the 19th century to build friendly international relationships around the world. It creates an extremely all-encompassing scene that all the athletes and audiences from different nations get along with others with happiness knowing no bound. However, one thing we, as global citizens, have to be aware of is that things are always not working in the way how they look like as there are political undercurrents that exist under the niceness of this divine sporting game.

As the 2020 Japanese Olympics approaching, there is an increasing amount of scandals being exposed to the public eyes. The most severe and noticeable one is Japan’s Olympics chief faces the charge of corruptions in France, which was reported by The New York Times: “The committee president, Tsunekazu Takeda [...] was charged by an investigating judge on Dec. 10, a spokeswoman for France’s financial crimes prosecutor confirmed” (Tariq, 2019). It seems to be a normal case as we know that there were a lot of corruption scandals used to be reported about the previous Olympic Games. However, one interesting thing to be beware is that France prosecutor had been suspecting the victory of Japanese since 2013 (Tariq, 2019), but decided to charge just after several months of the political arrest of Renault-Nissan, who is the CEO of alliance composed of Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi company, by the Japanese government (Laurance, 2018). Even though the officers of the Japanese Judiciary rejected to acknowledge the relevance between these two cases, we can still easily notice from this “coincidence” that Olympic Games mean more than just a game, and it is becoming more political relevance and another battlefield of the international political conflicts. Just like this specific example mentioned above, the Olympic Games have become a way of the political payback by France on Japan.

The original purpose of establishing the Olympic Games is to prompt unity and peace between the international community as a strong driver and representative of globalization and a critical way to enhance the global awareness of people around the world. However, what it used to stand had gone stale, and as a global citizen, there are not many things for us to do, and the only thing we can do is probably notice what had happened behind the nice-looking bubble rather than just stand outside of it and enjoy the colorful surface. In the end, I don’t mean to say it is a bad thing, but just to share some ideas related to a global event and able to provide some new perspectives to my readers, so they can learn and understand one thing more objectively.

Bibliographies:

Aaron Gordon (2016). The Rio Games Were An Unjustifiable Human Disaster, And So Are The Olympics. Retrieved from: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/gvayg4/the-rio-games-were-an-unjustifiable-human-disaster-and-so-are-the-olympics

Laurence Frost and Micheal Rose (2018). Seeds of Renault-Nissan crisis sown in Macron’s ‘raid’. Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nissan-ghosn-renault-macron-insight-idUSKCN1NX1GK

Tariq Panja and Hiroko Tabuchi (2019). Japan’s Olympics Chief Faces Corruption Charges in France. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/world/europe/japan-olympics-corruption-tsunekazu-takeda.html

Christine Brennan (2019). Opinion: Tokyo Olympics vote-buying scandal shows corruption never ends. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/christinebrennan/2019/03/20/tokyo-olympics-vote-buying-scandal-2020-games/3221850002/

0 notes

upshotre · 5 years

Text

Former Rio de Janeiro Governor Tells Judge He paid $2 m Bribe To Host 2016 Olympics

The former governor of Rio de Janeiro State said in court testimony on Thursday that he paid $2million to buy votes to ensure the city would be chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Sergio Cabral told a judge the money went to Lamine Diack, the former President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and was used to buy as many as nine votes. It was not immediately possible to reach Diack or his legal team on Thursday night. The head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and the main organizer of the bid, Arthur Nuzman, introduced a representative of Rio 2016 to Diack. Diack then asked Nuzman to make the payments ahead of the 2009 vote that saw Rio win out over Madrid, Chicago and Tokyo, Cabral told a federal judge. “Nuzman came to me and said, Sergio, I want tell you about the president of the International Athletics Federation, IAAF, Lamine Diack, he’s someone who is open to taking bribes,” Cabral said. Prosecutors in Brazil charged Nuzman in October 2017 with paying the $2 million in bribes to secure Rio as the 2016 Olympics host city. That trial is ongoing. He has said he is innocent and his lawyers repeated that on Thursday. Diack was also charged by Brazilian prosecutors. He said at the time he was innocent. Last month, Diack was also indicted in a French court on charges he and his son Papa Massata were involved in a series of illicit practices over a number of years. Those practices were said to include bribe-taking and money-laundering, with the active involvement of international athletes and their federations. Cabral told Judge Marcelo Bretas that Nuzman assured him the scheme would work because Diack had a history of such practices. “I said, Nuzman, what are our guarantees here? And he said, ‘traditionally he sells 4, 5, 6 votes. There is a risk that we don’t get through to the second round (of voting).” Cabral said Diack guaranteed up to six votes for $1.5 million and then came back and offered more if he was paid an extra $500,000. Cabral said he authorised the payment. “We did it,” Cabral said. The former governor, who has been sentenced to almost 200 years in jail for his part in a series of corruption scandals, named several top athletes in his testimony. Cabral also said that Brazil’s imprisoned former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the former mayor of the city, Eduardo Paes, did not participate in the scheme. But, accroding to him, they were informed about it after the fact. Cabral made the revelations at a hearing requested by his new defense team. The strategy of revealing admissions was made as part of his plea bargain in hopes it might lead to a reduction in the sentences facing both him and his wife Adriana Ancelmo, who was also jailed for corruption. Read the full article

0 notes

globalnewsafrica · 6 years

Text

MP Caleb Kositany wants government to forgive Olympic legend Kipchoge Keino over 2016 Rio Olympic scandal

Soy Member of Parliament Caleb Kositany has asked the government to pardon Olympics icon Kipchoge Keino over the ongoing investigations into the misappropriation of Ksh55 million meant for the 2016 Rio Olympics because he is a legend.

The legislator was in the company of Turkana Central counterpart John Lodepe when he spoke at Parliament buildings.

Kositany expressed his willingness to organise a…

View On WordPress

#2016 Rio Olympic Corruption Scandal #Caleb Kositany #Hassan Wario #Kipchoge Keino #Richard Ekai

0 notes

spicynbachili1 · 6 years

Text

Brazil elections: Far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro wins presidency | Brazil News

Sao Paulo, Brazil – Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro has received Brazil’s presidential elections, signalling a political shift for South America’s most populous nation and largest financial system.

Official outcomes gave Bolsonaro a 56 % share of the vote in Sunday’s runoff, comfortably forward of Fernando Haddad, the candidate of the centre-left Staff’ Social gathering (PT), who had 44 %.

Bolsonaro gave an web tackle by way of Fb Stay, shunning a standard press convention as a consequence of safety issues. In September, he suffered a close to deadly stabbing at a marketing campaign rally.

“We might not be flirting with socialism, communism, populism and extremism on the left,” he stated.

Supporters sporting t-shirts emblazoned with Bolsonaro’s face and Brazil’s yellow and inexperienced nationwide colors assembled outdoors his home within the Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro.

In Sao Paulo, supporters gathered on Avenida Paulista, town’s foremost thoroughfare, with flags and banners that learn Bolsonaro’s “Brazil above all the pieces, God above everybody” slogan.

Bolsonaro supporters have a good time in Sao Paulo [Nacho Doce/Reuters]

‘He’ll give us safety’

PT had received the final 4 elections in Brazil, whereas its well-liked founder Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva was the frontrunner this 12 months till being barred from operating in September due to a corruption conviction.

All through the marketing campaign, Bolsonaro promised to crack down on Brazil’s violent crime that noticed almost 64,000 homicides final 12 months. He desires to extend gun possession and has pledged to present police “carte blanche” to kill.

“He’ll give us the safety that the nation wants, behind this training and healthcare will observe,” stated Maria Lucia de Almeida, 84, a retired Sao Paulo trainer.

“He is trustworthy.”

However for different voters, Bolsonaro is an authoritarian and a menace to democracy. He has a historical past of disparaging remarks towards LGBT folks, ladies and minorities and has spoken of his assist for torture and extrajudicial police killings.

“He is made it clear that he would not wish to sit and have dialogue with people who assume totally different from him,” stated Pedro Igor Mantoun, 29, a company lawyer from Sao Paulo who voted for Haddad.

“For any nation, this can be a unhealthy factor however particularly for one with such a younger democracy as ours.”

Controversial previous

Bolsonaro’s rise from a fringe congressman to the presidency has come towards a backdrop of financial downturn, political turmoil, mammoth corruption scandals and rising violence.

Bolsonaro is an outspoken supporter of Brazil’s brutal and repressive 1964-1985 army dictatorship, a interval when tons of of political opponents have been murdered by the state and hundreds extra tortured.

He’s anticipated to stuff his cupboard with generals and ex-military males.

Final Sunday, throughout a confrontational speech transmitted to hundreds of supporters, Bolsonaro stated “pink (leftist) criminals” can be “banished from our homeland” and pledged a “cleaning by no means seen earlier than”.

“Brazil won’t turn into a dictatorship, we cannot see congress closed,” stated Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist and professor of worldwide relations at Rio de Janeiro State College.

“However we all know from expertise in different nations that electing an excessive president brings unhealthy penalties for democracy.”

Elsewhere, within the gubernatorial elections, in Sao Paulo, former mayor, media tycoon and as soon as host of Brazil’s model of The Apprentice TV programme Joao Doria received the race towards incumbent Marcio Franca.

In Rio de Janeiro, Bolsonaro ally and former decide Wilson Witzel beat Eduardo Paes who presided as mayor for 2 phrases, included when town hosted the 2016 Olympics.

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)(window, document,'script','//connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');

fbq('init', '968100353246427'); fbq('track', 'PageView');

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/brazil-elections-far-right-leader-jair-bolsonaro-wins-presidency-brazil-news/

0 notes

fromnadirtozenith · 7 years

Text

Special Olympics World Winter Games: Can we just stop sitting on our hands?

Rio Olympics concluded in the most dramatic way followed by the remarkable show of performance by disabled sportspersons in Paralympics, 2016. Although, India performed way better in the latter; somewhere, the champions’ accolades seemed to have drowned in the tepid support and coverage. The fiasco that India endured in Rio mainly because of the medal drought, apathy of the officials, lack of credit amongst many other issues that India was grappling with, were brought to the fore and compassed the cause of it to an abysmal sport infra and culture. Above all, the genuine concerns of the media and magnates supporting cricket to the detriment of stifling other sports were also raised but the irony is that we can still see for ourselves that at this point of time, we’ve #ChampionTheTrophy or #IndiavAus trending more than outpouring support for our compatriots who’ve made India proud of their remarkable éclat at the #specialwintergames in Austria.

I still remember the stories of Paralympians who made it where they are and no number of adjectives in my limited vocabulary could sum up my adulation for their morale and grit. I effused my feelings through twitter and other media, insanely, because I felt their efforts were underplayed. The IPL is about to begin in a few days and the promotions are in full swing notwithstanding scandals, spot-fixing and BCCI office bearers show defiance to Supreme Court-appointed CoA because well, corruption and contempt of court rarely seem to shake the conscience of a cricket fanatic. Furthermore, such issues just add to the marketing ploy and fodder of many writers & bloggers, including myself. Will the buck stop here? Will there be a paradigm shift in the realm of sports in India? In a celebrity-driven culture, is there enough room for sportspersons apart from cricketers to receive their rightful dues? And speaking about endorsements by non-mainstream sports players seem utterly quixotic today! One needs to analyse these gauntlet of questions to make it to the stage of uniformity.

India’s feat at Austria with a tally of 73 medals – 37 Gold, 10 Silver and 26 Bronze by India is certainly a proud moment for every Indian, and a kick in the teeth for those who have flayed us for dismal medal tallies in the not-so-distant past. Folks, do y’all recall Piers Morgan’s scathing yet plausible remark on the same?

It’s a different story that things got digressed to cricket once Virender Sehwag took a dig at him and then trolls pitched in to get their two cents worth in and others, to get their buckets of popcorn...

On the flip side, passing reckless comments on India’s subpar performance without even understanding the arduous effort that goes behind the annual/biennial/quadrennial events, is a mug’s game! Besides, you’re not bringing about any change by flogging a dead horse. I guess public figures could leverage their credibility on social platforms to reach this out to many a sports enthusiast. This will help bridge asymmetry and bring other sports at par with cricket and reduce the bias towards fringe sporting events. I guess Shobha De who learnt her lesson the bitter way ensuing from her infamous symptoms of foot-in-mouth which surfaced during Rio, lent at least a congratulatory note for the achievers.

In the end, naysayers can wallow in their pessimistic outlook, and others by giving simplistic solutions. The sporting fabric needs an overhaul and not mere smooth-talking by corporate, political parties and sports committees. If PV Sindhu gets big projects, wads of cash, property and VIP treatment from her triumph at Rio, least we can do is rally around these disabled sportspersons and give them the recognition they deserve and spare some for Special Olympics Bharat organization for their patronage. Sadly, we are yet to reach parity in terms of treating sportsperson in the same vein. The issue of placing equal worth within Olympic fraternity needs special attention, and this is not an issue endemic to India since Paralympians' gold medals are worth less than those of Olympians can no longer be brushed under the carpet.

These athletes have lent credence to the possibility of people surpassing physical and cognitive impediments to awe us with their superhuman display of achievements. Let’s not vitiate their hopes by adding further impediments though our innate biases. And this especially is a grave concern if 15-year-old Double Special Olympics medalist now sells paanipuri to make ends meet for her family in Madhya Pradesh. If this is how it is, we are going to succeed in rewarding talent by nipping it in the bud. No sweat if one forgets the ignominy India faced in Sochi Winter sports (2014) during the opening ceremony but it’s real sweat if our unsung heroes bite the dust…

-Sonica Gopinathan

29th March 2017

#specialolympics #specialolympian #worldwintergames #wintergames #forgotten heroes #rio olympics #rioparalympics

2 notes · View notes

winterolympicssports2018-blog · 7 years

Text

Russia stuck in stalemate with WADA after doping scandal

Click here for More Olympics Updates https://www.winterolympian.com/russia-stuck-in-stalemate-with-wada-after-doping-scandal/

Russia stuck in stalemate with WADA after doping scandal

AP Published 5:51 a.m. ET March 21, 2018 | Updated 11:12 a.m. ET March 21, 2018

With the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea closed, we turn the page and look ahead to the next Olympics: the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo. USA TODAY Sports

WADA President Craig Reedie delivers his speech during the opening day of the 2018 WADA annual symposium.(Photo: Jean-Christophe Bott, AP)

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Russia seems to be stuck in stalemate that is blocking its full re-entry to international sports after a state-backed doping scandal.

The World Anti-Doping Agency said Wednesday it is “not wavering” from two key demands in a road map to rehabilitate Russia, whose anti-doping body was suspended in November 2015.

Russia has refused to formally accept the findings of WADA-appointed investigator Richard McLaren, who detailed the doping program and state-orchestrated cover-ups, nor allow access to potentially tainted samples stored in the Moscow laboratory central to the conspiracy.

At an annual conference for global anti-doping officials, WADA stressed its wish to welcome Russia back would not be sold short.

“That price is the road map, and that price is they have to accept (McLaren),” the agency’s deputy director general, Rob Koehler, said in an expert panel session that also featured Russia’s top anti-doping official.

In an apparent plea to newly re-elected President Vladimir Putin, Koehler said public acceptance of McLaren’s evidence “needs to happen from the leadership, in order to start mending and having that cultural change.”

MORE:Putin orders Russian diplomats to seek doping rule changes

Putin said last year American interests were manipulating sports leaders to use doping scandals that embarrassed Russia ahead of the elections.

Russia’s federal law enforcement agency, which answers to Putin’s government, is another barrier to WADA restoring the compliance with global standards of the national anti-doping agency, known as RUSADA.

WADA president Craig Reedie earlier revealed his frustration with trying to work with the Russian Investigative Committee which sealed the Moscow laboratory as part of its own case.

Four letters sent to Russia by WADA in recent weeks have gone unanswered, and “it seems our offer has fallen on deaf ears,” Reedie said in a keynote speech.

Reedie said while he wanted to bring Russia “back in from the cold … it is just a pity it is taking so long for Russian authorities to make it happen.”

Decisions in Russia were taken above the level of sports officials, RUSADA director general Yuri Ganus told reporters after the session.

“It’s a question outside of our responsibility,” Ganus said when pressed on why Russia did not compromise on the two outstanding issues, adding it was a “procedural question” for federal investigators.

Ganus acknowledged Russia was “losing the trust of the international community. It’s a very serious problem.”

Earlier on stage, Ganus said McLaren was a “respected person” but did not address a delegate’s question of what happened next if Russia continued to refuse that McLaren’s report was accurate.

WADA and the IAAF, the governing body of track and field, are proving Russia’s toughest opponents in fallout from the doping scandal which corrupted the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee imposed conditions on Russia’s team selections for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and 2018 Pyeongchang OIympics, though reinstated Russia’s Olympic body days after the games finished in South Korea last month.

The IAAF this month threatened the Russian track federation, suspended since 2015, with expulsion if progress was not made by July.

The doping scandal has not yet affected Russia’s hosting of the World Cup, which kicks off on June 14 in Moscow.

FIFA is investigating potential doping cases in Russian soccer using evidence provided by McLaren and WADA, including more than three years of testing data from the Moscow laboratory supplied by a whistleblower last October.

WADA chief investigator Guenter Younger said his team “fortunately” had help from another whistleblower, former Moscow and Sochi lab director Grigory Rodchenkov, to begin the challenge of analyzing the data.

“We will not accept that cases will be brushed under the carpet (by sports bodies),” Younger said.

Reedie began the conference by saying “every Russian sporting victory will be questioned” until the country achieves a full return to international sports.

“It is time for this situation to change in the interests of clean athletes,” the WADA leader said, “in Russia and beyond.”

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

Last SlideNext Slide

Source link

#winter Olympics Updates

0 notes

hsrsports · 4 years

Video

youtube

Ex-head of world athletics Lamine Diack sent to jail for corruption - Click on link to subscribe my channel https://ift.tt/34vXvMA Facebook - https://ift.tt/2Vjiyz6 Twitter - https://twitter.com/HsrSports Pinterest - https://ift.tt/2ywdZIH Tumblr - https://ift.tt/2z5qwmL Blog - https://ift.tt/2VlBDRu #Sports #Sports_News #Tournament Lamine Diack. (AFP Photo) PARIS: Lamine Diack, once one of the most powerful people in athletics, was convicted in France on Wednesday of running a clique that covered up Russian doping in return for bribes worth millions of dollars and sentenced to spend at least two years in jail. The 87-year-old former head of world athletics' governing body was found guilty of taking kickbacks from athletes in return for concealing positive drug tests, which enabled them to continue competing, including at the 2012 London Olympics. The court had heard how Diack solicited bribes totalling 3.45 million euros ($4.1 million) and paid off other officials at the International Association of Athletics Federations ( IAAF) to aid with the cover up. He was also guilty of accepting Russian money to help finance Macky Sall's 2012 presidential campaign in Senegal, Diack's home country, the court ruled. The former long-jumper's actions had "undermined the values of athletics and the fight against doping", the presiding judge said. The court handed Diack a four-year prison sentence, two years of which are suspended and a fine of 500,000 euros. It also ordered him to pay 5 million euros in damages to World Athletics (formerly IAAF) together with his son and co-accused, Papa Massata Diack. Lamine Diack's lawyers said he was a scapegoat "sacrificed in the name of political correctness", adding they would appeal the judgment which was unfair and inhumane. He will remain under house arrest pending the appeal, which could last months. WIDENING GRAFT PROBE Diack led the IAAF from 1999 to 2015. In his testimony, he acknowledged slowing the handling of Russian doping cases between 2011-2013 to save a sponsorship deal with a Russian bank and avoid public scandal. But he denied the corruption allegations. At the heart of the corruption scam alongside Diack was his son, Papa Massata. Papa Massata, who fled France to Senegal after the French investigation began and was tried in absentia, was sentenced to five years in jail and hit with a 1 million euro fine. Papa Massata's lawyers in Senegal said he was denied a fair trial and would appeal. At the outset of the trial, his Senegal-based lawyers asked that it be postponed on the grounds that COVID-19 restrictions meant they could not travel, yet the request was refused by the French judges. French Investigators say Papa Massata is at the centre of years-long corruption probe that now spans Europe, Asia and the Americas, and includes the awarding of the 2020 Olympic Games to Tokyo and the 2016 Games to Rio de Janeiro. In 2017, Papa Massata branded the accusation that he was part of a large corruption racket as "the biggest lie in the history of world sport." Four other defendants were charged in the case: Habib Cisse, Diack's former lawyer at the IAAF; Gabriel Dollé, who oversaw doping tests at the IAAF; former head of Russian athletics Valentin Balakhnichev, and former Russian athletics' head coach Alexei Melnikov. All four were found guilty of corruption offences. Balakhnichev, who also did not attend the hearing, told Reuters he too would appeal. "I don't live in France," he said. "We have our own laws in Russia that protect Russian citizens." Credit : Times of India Source: https://ift.tt/3hvTI72

#Sports

0 notes

theengnet · 5 years

Text

30: Tim Maia

As part of Rio's preparations for the Olympics in 2016 a cycling pathway was built adjacent to a narrow, congested roadway along a picturesque shoreline. When a section collapsed only months before the opening ceremony killing two people, the world looked on with growing concerns about the imminent Olympics. With John Chidgey.

Links of potential interest:

Deaths on Collapsed Rio de Janeiro Bike Path Deal Safety Blow to Olympic Host

Anger Grows Over Rio Bike Path Failure - WSJ

Questions Continue After the Collapse of Rio’s Cycle Path

Faulty Planning Blamed for Deadly Collapse

Padlocked and Falling Apart: Rio’s Olympic Legacy

Bike Lane Collapse Kills People on Beach

Are Brazil’s Corruption Scandals Finally Hitting the Olympics?

Rio, the Olympics, and Broken Promises

Architects Say Rio’s Olympic Bike Path Was Destined to Collapse

Petition Calls for Complete Demolition of Cycle-path

Judge Orders Closure of Rio Cycleway

Photo Gallery Links:

Gallery of A Stretch of Rio de Janeiro’s Tim Maia Bike Path Collapses

The Collapsed Area of the new Cycle Lane

Links of Interest (Portuguese):

Queda da Ciclovia: Doações à campanhas feitas pela CONCREMAT e os Grandes Jogos

Tweet: “‘Podre, tem que fazer tudo outra vez’, diz vice-prefeito sobre ciclovia Tim Maia, no Rio”

PETIÇÃO PARA A DEMOLIÇÃO DA CICLOVIA DA AVENIDA NIEMEYER

Support Causality on Patreon Episode sponsors: Backblaze:

Gimmick free, truly unlimited, cloud backup for your Mac or PC for just $6 a month with discounts for annual plans. Sign up via the following URL and for a 15 day no-risk free trial. Don’t take a chance with your data, start protecting your work and your memories today.

Visit backblaze.com/causalityto learn more.Soulver.App:

You’ve tried a calculator and a spreadsheet but if you haven’t tried Soulver yet you’re missing out on a great app that fits perfectly with the way your brain actually thinks. Soulver for iOS is available through the App Store and the newly updated Soulver 3 for Mac from Acqualias website.

Visit soulver.appto learn more.

Podcast Episode

0 notes

torentialtribute · 5 years

Text

Michel Platini arrest is part of a much wider, bigger probe into Olympics, World Cup and athletics

In December 2017, when Platini was first interrogated by the French public prosecutor for financial crimes, he extensively searched his homes in Nyon and in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Cloud. Platini is not taxed. He is still a witness of the police. His lawyer insisted that his client had nothing to hide and was not part of a broader investigation into sports corruption that the French police are conducting.

It sounds like Platini was being treated politely and he can happily praise himself if the accounts of suspects from the same investigation are doing anything. Some sports officials in this investigation have been exposed to police morning attacks. One fainted when police officers turned up to get him out of his house for his family and in a prison cell.

Officials were locked up in solitary cells and left to stew while the police interviewed their colleagues, and then they called for their own interrogation.

In this case there was no question of Platini being held in a cell. I checked in early in the morning by appointment. Nicolas Sarkozy, who is the author of this book, is the author of the book "The Sicko" and "The Sicko". the Elysee Palace on November 23, 2010.

The lunch took place nine days before Platini, as a member of the FIFA Steering Committee, would vote for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Platini maintains that lunch played no role, that he had no idea that Sheik Tamim, who was then the crown prince of Qatar, would be there and that he had subsequently called FIFA chief Blatter to inform him immediately

Platini

In short, the French investigation initiated by Parquet National Financier [1] [1] [2] [3]which is roughly analogous to the Crown Prosecution Service in combination with the Serious Fraud Office is a heavy duty operation. The lead is the excellent Bordeaux-trained Jean-Yves Lourgouilloux, a former police-police investigator who appears to have a healthy disdain for social hierarchies and the status of eleven-feted sports grandies.

His investigation has led Lamine Diack, former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, to have been arrested in Paris since 2015, the part of an ongoing investigation into a network of sports corruption.

Diack was forced to resign as president in 2015, when the seriousness of this investigation became apparent, covered by doping tests and paid in cash to companies related to his son, Pope.

<img id = "i-4e96336085bbbfd4" src = "https://dailym.ai/2KoEFju image-a-16_1560848025821.jpg "height =" 486 "width =" 634 "alt =" <img id = "i-4e96336085bbbfd4" src = "https://dailym.ai/2WgE5KP /18/09/14928360-7153059-image-a-16_1560848025821.jpg "height =" 486 "width =" 634 "alt =" Platini pictured during the 2018 and 2022 World Cup announcements held in Zurich in 2010 and 2022 World Cup – announcement held in Zurich, in 2010

Platini depicted during the 2018 and 2022 World Cup announcement held in Zurich, in 2010

It is not only the award of the World Cup to Qatar by FIFA in their sights. French police suspect that several major sporting events of the past decade have been awarded due to large-scale corruption within FIFA, the IAAF and the International Olympic Committee.

Since the award of suspicious events, FIFA, the IOC and the IAAF have all reformed their respective selection processes, with the IOC pointing out that reforms have strengthened their rules and that a number of members have since resigned or been suspended.

The French police were initially alerted to the murky sports world

Police claims – and confirmed a subsequent IAAF investigation.

Police claim – and a subsequent IAAF investigation has confirmed – that Papa Diack used his influence at the IAAF to try to delay Russian positive doping tests.

Papa Diack was banned for life by the IAAF. The former head of IAAF anti-doping, Gabriel Dolle and Lamine Diack will stand trial next year. Papa Diack and Valentin Balakhnichev, former head of the Russian Athletics Federation, said to have conspired with them, can be tried in absentia. There is also an international arrest warrant for Balakhnichev, who remains in Russia.

But the money trail for those doping robberies meant that the French police found something more interesting, namely one of the companies involved, Black Tidings.

Papa Diack & # 39; s own consulting firm, PMD Consulting, had its domain name, pmdconsulting. with, registered at the same address as Black Tidings. While Black Tidings had little cash inflow, it had received $ 2 million from Tokyo 2020, hosts of the next Olympic Games. The payments were split in two, the first $ 1m tranche in July 2013, two months before the vote at the IOC Congress about who would organize the 2020 Games – a tough fight between Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid.

The French police have emails from Papa urging his father & # 39; we need to do more & # 39; in the run-up to the vote. They must determine what they mean. Le Monde has reported that Papa Diack's emails say that another influential IOC figure was doing everything to get Africans to vote for Madrid! We have to lock this before the break.

<img id = "i-52b80b10415269b4" src = "https://dailym.ai/2FsgbSb 0-image-a-3_1561235390066.jpg "height =" 421 "width =" 634 "alt =" <img id = "i-52b80b10415269b4" src = "https://dailym.ai/2UkHcAp /2019/06/22/21/2E18FCE200000578-0-image-a-3_1561235390066.jpg "height =" 421 "width =" 634 "alt =" Former IAAF president Lamine Diack has been arrested in Paris since 2015 "class =" blkBorder img-share "

Former IAAF President Lamine Diack has been under house arrest in Paris since 2015

Tokyo was successful and a month later to further payment of $ 1 million, Witnesses told the police and independently of the Mail on Sunday that Lamine Diack was confident that the result would be Tokyo on the morning of the vote paid from Tokyo 2020 to Black Tidings. payments intended for studies, one secondary education opinion about how Tokyo could win and one after the race for the poll that voted for them. The studies were ridiculously superficial for work worth $ 2 million.

In March this year, Tsunekazu Takeda, president of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) and head of the Tokyo bidding committee, resigned at that time, saying he wanted a new generation to take over.

Takeda was interrogated in December last year by the French investigation during a visit to Paris and they placed him under formal investigation. He has denied all charges of bribery.

Papa and Lamine Diack also denied allegations that it was a payment to influence moods. But the Diacks are also at the center of another trail of mystery payments that would connect them to Qatar. In 2011, six months after the Sarkozy-Platini-Thamim lunch, Paris Saint-Germain was purchased by Qatar Sports Investments. The French police want to know why Oryx QSI, a company related to the company in Qatar, paid two payments of $ 3.5 million in 2011 to another Papa Diack company, Pamodzi.

Coincidentally, this payment came just before the IAAF, led by Lamine Diack, would decide between Doha and London for the right to organize the 2017 Athletics World Championships. It turned out that Doha lost that race. But in 2014, Doha did not win the right to organize the 2019 championships.

Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the president of PSG, has been overseeing the transformation of the football club since 2011, leaving David Beckham, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe de

Al-Khelaifi, member of the UEFA executive committee, is chairman of BEIN Sports, a subsidiary of QSI and suspected of corruption by the French police. Technically, his legal status is & # 39; mise and exam & # 39 ;, which means that he is now rather a suspect in the case than a witness.

Yousef Al Obaidly, another PSG board member and beIN Sport chief executive, is also & # 39; mise and exam & # 39; and the French French police have focused on payments of $ 3.5 million . I deny any suggestion of corruption. His lawyer Jean-Didier Belot told The Associated Press last month: & # 39; It is not unusual to make a down payment as part of a bid … it was not corruption, but a risk that we evaluated. & # 39;

Pamodzi, the Diacks company, already in another corruption investigation. Carlos Nuzman, former chairman of the Brazilian Olympic committee and Rio 2016 Olympic organizing committee, is accused of facilitating a $ 2 million payment from a Brazilian businessman to Pamodzi, shortly before the IOC voted on who the 2016 Games

would host Nuzman denies the charge and his trial in Brazil is ongoing. Much of the evidence was provided by the French.

The tentacles of this investigation spread far and wide and it could even overshadow the IOC scandals surrounding the award of the 2002 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City and the meltdown of FIFA in 2015.

Whether Lourgouilloux can continue his investigation into his logical conclusions remains a debatable issue. At least at this time, a number of major sports drivers should maintain a certain degree of fear in preparation for the French police call early in the morning

Source link

#Michel Platini arrest is part of a much wider #bigger probe into Olympics #World Cup and athletics"

0 notes