Tokyo Olympics

[GeneChing]

We'll just skip from London (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63163), past Rio, to this.


Wushu faces IOC evaluation in Macau for 2020 Olympic bid (http://www.insidethegames.biz/images/stories/thumbnails/images-2012-09-Yu_Zaiqing_and_Jacques_Rogge_17-09-12-550x367.jpg)
Monday, 17 September 2012
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By Tom Degun

September 17 - Wushu is facing its key inspection from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the 4th World Junior Wushu Championships, the sport's evaluation event for inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games, began today in Macau.

The Championships, which will feature both male and female athletes between 15 and 18 years of age, will run from today to September 25 and be the biggest to date as it takes place in the Tap Seac Multi-sports Pavilion in Macau, a special administrative region of China.

Wushu is a full-contact sport derived from traditional Chinese martial arts composed of two disciplines, which are taolu and sanda.

Governed by the International Wushu Federation (IWUF), the sport was developed in China in 1949.

The IWUF has failed to get the sport included on the official Olympic sports programme at previous Games although the IOC allowed China to organise an unofficial international wushu exhibition event during Beijing 2008.

Many experts consider wushu to be outside contenders to make the 2020 Olympic programme and it has a hugely important figure fighting its corner in the form of IWUF President Yu Zaiqing of China.

http://www.insidethegames.biz/images/stories/thumbnails/images-2012-09-Yu_Zaiqing_and_Jacques_Rogge_17-09-12-550x367.jpgYu Zaiqing (pictured with IOC President Jacques Rogge) has held a number of significant positions within the Olympic Movement, including as vice-president of the IOC and Beijing 2008, as well as being a current vice-president of the Chinese Olympic Committee

The 61-year-old, who was vice-president of Beijing 2008, became an IOC member in 2000 and has since held numerous powerful positions in the organisation, including the role of IOC vice-president from 2008 to 2012.

"Wushu is a sport that embodies many of the Olympic values," said Zaiqing.

"We believe that it can make a fantastic contribution to the Olympic Games and we are very honoured that the IOC has shortlisted wushu for inclusion for the 2020 Olympic Games.

"We are hopeful we can now prove that our sport deserves to be at the Games."

Wushu is one of seven sports bidding to make the 2020 Olympic programme alongside climbing, karate, roller sport, squash, wakeboard, baseball and softball, with the latter two likely to make a joint bid.

All the sports will be assessed at a major championships before the end of the year before the IOC compiles a report on the merits of each discipline and its bid based largely on the evaluation event.

The IOC will then make a final decision on which sport, if any, to include on the 2020 Olympic programme at its Session in Buenos Aires in September next year.

Only a maximum of 28 sports are allowed at the Olympic Games and this will be reached at Rio 2016 with the inclusion of golf and rugby sevens.

However, it is highly likely that at least one of the seven bid sports will be included in the 2020 Olympic sports programme with the IOC set to remove a minimum of one discipline currently on the sports programme.

Contact the writer of this story at tom.degun@insidethegames.biz

[Lucas]

It will be a tough battle to go against baseball, but I hope wushu wins.

I think with the inclusion of Sanda into the olympics, you will see a heavy increase in interest of Chinese Martial Arts. Especially in terms of people wanting to compete and fight at an olympic level. The inclusion of Sanda will also let the world see what CMA has to offer the martial arts world in terms of full contact applicability.

[SaintSage]

My uncle was VP of the World Taekwondo Federation and so did a lot of work getting TKD into the Olympics. He was always very proud of it but I was scandalized by the politics of it all. It was bad enough the arts were being "codified" by governmental intervention (sound familiar?) but with the inclusion into the olympics the rule system became a joke. What do you mean I don't get any points for punching?

I fear that the rule-set will become popular and that CMA schools will start teaching their system to the rules and lose part of their identity. Though I am of the opinion that we train martial arts for both combat and artistic expression, so others may not care that the "flavors" all start to taste alike.

[SteveLau]

Well, I have always supported CMA to be included in the Olympics. It is feasible that CMA and other all-round martial art systems compete against each other in an acceptable format and rule set. A recent local MMA tournament has demonstrated that. It had fights with CMA vs TKD, Muay Thai vs Kick Boxing, etc. I am looking forward to see CMA become part of the Olympics.



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[Bacon]

Well, I have always supported CMA to be included in the Olympics. It is feasible that CMA and other all-round martial art systems compete against each other in an acceptable format and rule set. A recent local MMA tournament has demonstrated that. It had fights with CMA vs TKD, Muay Thai vs Kick Boxing, etc. I am looking forward to see CMA become part of the Olympics.



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

I've been saying this for a long time. MMA gives practitioners from all disciplines equal footing on which to fight. Sanda can compete just like muay Thai, kickboxing, boxing, wrestling, judo, etc etc.

[SPJ]

I remember that not too long ago.

Everyone was gearing up to wushu 2008.

But it did not happen at Beijing Olympics 2008.

And yes, Chinese (PRC) will keep trying.

:cool:

[SPJ]

personally

I would drop tao lu altogether.

Tao lu are form practices.

Nothing to compete.

San Shou has been the core since the dawn of Chinese or any civilization.

Bo Ji was the old name.

;)

[IronFist]

Cool. I support this.

Question: I thought "wushu" was the flashy forms with the flexible weapons. That article says wushu is a full contact sport. Can someone please clarify?

[Jimbo]

The article says "wushu" is composed of both taolu and sanda, so it's referring to the sanda aspect. Personally, I think if the sanda makes it in, it would be great; much, MUCH better than the Olympic TKD. I don't see much worth to including the flashy taolu aspect. IMO, the two aren't related at all.

[pazman]

Technically, there are two categories in modern wushu: taolu and sanda. Perhaps the article was referring to the sanda part.

In any case, PRC will keep trying but I don't think it will succeed. Chinese practitioners are generally really insular in promoting their arts, and I think many would feel perturbed in competing directly with foreigners.

I've tried to express this to my Chinese classmates...If you go to a judo dojo in Japan with a bright happy face and say "I want to practice Judo!", you will most likely be greeted with the same in return and invited to practice. In China, show up to a sanda gym, or a gongfu group, and half of them will see it as strange and a few would even take insult.

[RickMatz]

Could the MMA guys we are familiar with compete successfully under the sanda rules?

[Lucas]

Cool. I support this.

Question: I thought "wushu" was the flashy forms with the flexible weapons. That article says wushu is a full contact sport. Can someone please clarify?

wu = martial

shu = art

wushu just means martial art, so its really all encompasing. in the west wushu is most commonly refering to the performance aspect. similarly kungfu doesnt mean martial arts at all, its just the modern popular term to mean chinese martial arts.


this character is Wu in chinese and Bu in japanese. both meaning martial, and or warrior spirit, and or military.
http://c.ooi1.com/usa/9370.jpg

[Lucas]

Could the MMA guys we are familiar with compete successfully under the sanda rules?

as long as they follow the rules yes. I think sanda would be a powerful competition circuit for mma guys that are heavy into striking with decent wrestling skills.

[pazman]

Sanda could have been popular in the USA years ago were it not for the "I gots mine, f--- you" attitude of a few traditional gongfu "masters" who stuck their heads into sanda.

[Lucas]

Sanda could have been popular in the USA years ago were it not for the "I gots mine, f--- you" attitude of a few traditional gongfu "masters" who stuck their heads into sanda.

I agree. A lot of times I find sanda fights to be more exciting than mma fights.

[IronFist]

Thanks for clarifying the definition of "wushu."

If you google image "wushu" you get the flashy stuff, but I guess that's just what's popular here because it's fun to watch.

Yeah, sanda in the Olympics would be cool.

[GeneChing]

Wushu fighting uphill battle (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2012-12/14/content_16016022.htm)
Updated: 2012-12-14 04:08
By Sun Xiaochen ( China Daily)

Chinese martial art faces strong competition to kick off in the Games

Don't start planning those Olympic wushu-watching parties just yet.

The sport is a long way from becoming an official event at the Games, said the head of the umbrella organization for Olympic and non-Olympic sports federations.

"That's a difficult question. They are very far (from getting in the Olympics) now," SportAccord president Hein Verbruggen said on Thursday on the sidelines of the World Mind Games in Beijing.

Despite its growing international popularity, the combat sport derived from traditional Chinese martial arts faces stiff competition in the reserve pool.

SportAccord represents 92 sports federations, providing a huge well for the International Olympic Committee to draw from.

"The IOC basically has its own recognition system, but they base themselves to a large extent upon us. If we recognize a federation, it will be a major step to getting recognized by the IOC. It's getting much closer," said Verbruggen, a former IOC member and the chairman of the coordination commission for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Recognized by the IOC in 2002, the International Wushu Federation has been promoting the sport internationally by hosting events like the 2010 World Combat Games.

It was left in the cold for the 2016 Games, with golf and rugby sevens earning inclusion instead.

The window will open again in September at the IOC session in Argentina, where members will meet to elect the host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics and consider adding new sports.

Wushu fighting uphill battle

Even then, Verbruggen said wushu would face long odds.

"The first group is in the Olympics," he said. "The second is recognized (by the IOC) but not in the Games. And wushu is one of them, among another 32 or 33 sports who all want to get in there. The IOC will make a decision on whether they are going to add a new sport or not. I know wushu is one of the candidates. But it's very difficult."

Climbing, baseball, karate, roller sports, softball, squash and wakeboarding are also leading candidates for 2020.

Squash is the likely front-runner because it is widely played and has been in the Commonwealth Games since 1996.



Wushu's push for Games spot (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/wushus-push-for-games-spot/story-e6frg7mf-1226544773924)
From: The Australian
December 29, 2012 12:00AM

THE pure commercial potential of wushu puts the Chinese martial arts in serious contention for 2020 Olympic Games inclusion, according to the sole Australian on the sport's bid committee.

Wushu is one of eight sports hoping for inclusion in the Olympic program alongside squash, karate, roller sport, climbing, wakeboarding and the joint bid from baseball and softball.

Despite being the national sport of China's 1.34 billion people and having roots more than 4000 years old, wushu is a mystery to most Australians.

But partly due to terminology.

Wushu was originally known popularly by the Cantonese term kung fu, which was made famous by Bruce Lee in a series of Hollywood films -- including The Way of the Dragon -- in the early 1970s.

In Mandarin, the term wushu literally translates as "wu" meaning military and "shu" meaning art.

Wushu has since been distinguished as an aesthetic performance and competitive sport -- which resembles rhythmic gymnastics -- while kung fu remains the traditional fighting practice.

Routines are performed solo, paired or in groups, either bare-handed or armed with traditional Chinese weaponry.

Male and female competitors are judged and given points according to the speed, difficulty and presentation of their stances, kicks, punches, balances and jumps.

While it will take time to educate Australians about the intricacies of the sport, Wushu Australia honorary president Walt Missingham believes the IOC won't be able to deny the pull of the dollar when it comes to considering the sport's Olympic inclusion.

"The Olympic movement is driven very much by television audience," said Missingham, who produced the documentary The Intercepting Fist about Bruce Lee's life.

"Wushu would bring multiple hundreds of millions of people in China and the greater Asia region into TV. And with that it brings in new sponsors. It opens up avenues for companies to do business in China.

"And you can't ignore China's political and economic clout on the global stage and the Olympic Games is very light on in terms of Asian sports."

When pressed on whether the commercial aspect was a motivating factor for the IOC, wushu's Olympic bid committee member Missingham was matter of fact.

"Do we deal with the reality or the public perception?" he said.

"If there's anyone out there that truly doesn't think the Olympic Games is highly motivated by the commercial imperative, I'm sorry, but they're on the wrong planet.

"It's a multi-billion-dollar exercise. In fact, without money, the Olympics simply cannot function.

"In tandem with that, you've got to take on board the reach of wushu not just into China and greater Asia, but into the African nations too where wushu is very popular. So you have two significant continents that are desiring that wushu be included." Africa is definitely a factor here, as wushu is surprisingly popular by many accounts there, but I'm not sure that it'll be that much of a factor. Then again, who knows what the world will look like in 2020?

[Syn7]

It will be a tough battle to go against baseball, but I hope wushu wins.

I think with the inclusion of Sanda into the olympics, you will see a heavy increase in interest of Chinese Martial Arts. Especially in terms of people wanting to compete and fight at an olympic level. The inclusion of Sanda will also let the world see what CMA has to offer the martial arts world in terms of full contact applicability.

I'm all for MA's in the olympics, but not at the expense of other well established sprts. The whole baseball thing annoys me. It should be a staple. So should cricket! That's my N American perspective and I'm sticking to it. :D

[Brule]

I figured this would be an appropriate spot for this although most of the conversation surrounds Wushu, but looks like the IOC is dropping wrestling from the Olympics in 2020. It caught me by surprise as i thought if they dropped anything it wouldn't be wrestling, which is one of the things i think of when talking Olympics. Of course, it opens the door to add a new sport, wonder if this would lead to Wushu;)



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-sports/ioc-drops-wrestling-from-2020-olympics/article8481020/

[sanjuro_ronin]

It boggles the mind...

[David Jamieson]

But they could get rid of some of the really dumb stuff like ribbon dance and ball toss and catch in the rhythmic gymnastics lump .

heck, I'd even get rid of synchronized swimming if it wasn't so funny to watch...

wrestling? wtf is wrong wit these IOC dunderheads?

[taai gihk yahn]

it's just bizarre - wrestling was one of the events at the ancient games and is one of the pillars of combat sports; just don't get it...

[GeneChing]

Being a former epee fencer, I've been expecting pentathlon to be cut every year. Never wrestling.

@DJ: I love rhythmic gymnastics. It's one of my fav events.

[David Jamieson]

I like floor gymnastics.
Never was a fan of the rhythmic stuff.
Way too girly girl for me. :p

[GeneChing]

Not even uber flexible athletic girls? ;)

I like rhythmic gymnastics because its interaction with an inanimate tool, which I can analog to weapons practice. How much different is a ribbon from a long tasseled sword? It really appeals to the Jackie Chan side of me, to be able to make the inanimate animate, like Fred Astaire and a coat rack.

[Grumblegeezer]

But they could get rid of some of the really dumb stuff like ribbon dance and ball toss and catch in the rhythmic gymnastics lump .

heck, I'd even get rid of synchronized swimming if it wasn't so funny to watch...

wrestling? wtf is wrong with these IOC dunderheads?


God only knows. I can't think of a more universal and authentic expression of individual human competition than the grappling arts. Maybe wrestling doesn't have enough entertainment value. By that standard they should dump it all in favor of video games. :mad:

[JamesC]

Yeah dropping wrestling makes no sense

[GeneChing]

Olympics Moves to Drop Wrestling in 2020 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/sports/olympics-may-drop-wrestling-in-2020.html)
By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: February 12, 2013 228 Comments

Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling will be contested at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but they will be excluded from the 2020 Summer Games, for which a host city has not yet been named, the Olympic committee said Tuesday.

The decision to drop wrestling was made by secret ballot by the committee’s 15-member executive board at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. The exact vote and the reasons for the decision were not given in detail.

There is a chance that the Olympic committee can reverse that decision in May, when it considers a 26th sport to add to the 2020 Games. A final decision will be made in September, but wrestling’s Olympic future seems doubtful, said veteran observers of the Games.

In recent years the I.O.C. has expressed concern about the size of the Summer Games and wanted to cap the number of athletes at about 10,500. It has also said it wants to enhance its modernity by drawing younger viewers among the international television audience. On Tuesday the Olympic committee said in a statement that it wanted to ensure that it remained “relevant to sports fans of all generations.”

Olympic-style wrestling, with its amateur roots and absence of visibility except during the Games, lacks superstars with widespread international acclaim like Lionel Messi in soccer, Kobe Bryant in basketball and Tiger Woods in golf. And the popularity of Olympic-style wrestling in the United States is far surpassed by the staged bombast of professional wrestling.

Sports like snowboarding have been added to the Winter Games to broaden the audience. Golf and rugby will be added to the 2016 Rio Games. Among the sports that wrestling must compete with for future inclusion are climbing, rollerblading and wakeboarding.

The committee might also have grown frustrated that Greco-Roman wrestling did not include women, experts said. Women began participating in freestyle wrestling at the 2004 Athens Games.

Politics also play an inevitable role in the workings of the International Olympic Committee. Among the sports surviving Tuesday’s vote was modern pentathlon, also threatened and less popular internationally than wrestling. But modern pentathlon, a five-event sport that includes shooting, horseback riding and running, was invented by Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Games. And it is supported by Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., son of the former Olympic committee president and a member of its board.

Mark Adams, a spokesman for the Olympic committee, told reporters in Lausanne that Tuesday’s vote was a “process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics.” He also said: “In the view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in 2020. It’s not a case of what’s wrong with wrestling, it is what’s right with the 25 core sports.”

Wrestling’s world governing body, known by its initials as FILA and based in Switzerland, said it was “greatly astonished” by Tuesday’s decision and would take “all necessary measures” to persuade the Olympic committee to keep the sport in the Summer Games.

The dropping of wrestling faced immediate and widespread criticism.

“I think this is a really stupid decision,” the Olympic historian David Wallechinsky said. Wrestling, he said, “was in the ancient Olympics.” He added: “It has been in the modern Olympics since 1896. In London 29 different countries won medals. This is a popular sport.”

Wrestling seemed in many ways to be the perfect Olympic sport. It is as fundamental as running; held in 180 countries, including the United States, Russia, India and Iran; and contested in a small area that is easily followed on television. And the Olympics are wrestling’s ultimate competition, which is not the case in sports like soccer and basketball.

“When you think of the Olympics you think of wrestling,” said Cael Sanderson, the wrestling coach at Penn State and a 2004 Olympic champion. “It was a marquee event in ancient Greece and in the modern Games. After running, it was the next sport to be part of the Games. Like track and field, the Olympics are the highest level. Some sports, it’s just not as special.”

The dropping of wrestling delivered another blow to the United States, which recently lost medal chances in baseball and softball, which have also been dropped from the Olympics. American wrestlers won more than 100 medals in the Summer Games.

“I don’t think anybody thought this would happen,” said Rulon Gardner, who won a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2000 Sydney Games and a bronze at the 2004 Athens Games. “It’s a shame. This is one of the original sports. It’s been around for thousands of years. The Olympic movement has gone astray. It’s moving in the direction not of history but of ratings. Is it about mainstream and money, or is it about amateur sports competing at the highest level on the world stage?”

Some wrestling officials said that FILA, wrestling’s world governing body, needed to change the sport quickly to retain any chance of future inclusion in the Olympics. Modern pentathlon, for instance, has reduced its competition from four or five days to one day.

“We need to make some drastic changes in the sport, make it more attractive, especially for TV audiences,” Mikhail Mamiashvili, president of the Russian wrestling federation and an 1988 Olympic gold medalist in Greco-Roman competition, told Reuters.

Michael Novogratz, the team leader for the United States freestyle team at the London Games, said wrestling lacked influence with the Olympic committee’s executive board, where power is concentrated in Western Europe. Wrestling is more popular in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States.

“This wasn’t a decision of thought; this was a decision of friends,” said Novogratz, who is the chairman of the United States Wrestling Foundation and a principal and member of the board of directors of the Fortress Investment Group.

Novogratz also said that FILA had “dropped the ball and did not do a good enough job selling the merits of wrestling to the I.O.C.” He said, though, that he expected a “loud and aggressive response” from the international wrestling community.

“I know that wrestling is a strong sport around the world,” said Bruce Baumgartner, a two-time Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling who is now the athletic director at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. “It’s not just the U.S. and Russia. It’s a confusing, sad day for me. But I’ve been around the Olympic movement for a long time. It’s not over till it’s over.”

While wrestling remains popular at the high school level in the United States, and had added teams at the Division II and Division III college level in recent years, it has struggled at the Division I college level with budget constraints and what some supporters say are requirements for gender equity. Loss of Olympic participation would hurt the financing for USA Wrestling, the national governing body, and undoubtedly send the sport into decline.

“When you have your Super Bowl every four years, if you take that away, that’s a scary thing,” said Sanderson, the Penn State coach and former Olympic champion.
Personally, I think it has something do to with the Pope resigning (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65293). Take that where you will...;)

[Syn7]

If rollerberby or karate pushes out wrestling, I will never watch the Olympics again...!!!

Sacrificing an ancient sport to accommodate some newschool popular "let's attract the kids" hustle is ridiculous. The olympics were nearing joke status as it was, now this stuff... Boooo....!!!

[Kellen Bassette]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics--ioc-s-poor-decision-to-add-golf-costs-wrestling-its-spot-in-olympics-201325406.html

Golf did wrestling in. It boggles the mind.

[Syn7]

What's next? Darts, pool and bowling? Maybe we can dump swimming, gymnastics and boxing to make room. :rolleyes:


**** the olympics.


:(

[RenDaHai]

WTF??

Wrestling is one of the original sports.

There are so many things in the olympics which shouldn't be there because they are really niche things that you need a lot of equipment to practice and most people have never even had a chance to try. Things like that should be cut because there are so few people who do them, they are not olympic. But wrestling??

You can practice that in your living room for gods sake. I agree with trimming olympics down to its base sports, sports everyone can do so you really get the worlds most impressive athletes because there is a lot of competition. But wrestling is one of those.

[Syn7]

WTF??

Wrestling is one of the original sports.

There are so many things in the olympics which shouldn't be there because they are really niche things that you need a lot of equipment to practice and most people have never even had a chance to try. Things like that should be cut because there are so few people who do them, they are not olympic. But wrestling??

You can practice that in your living room for gods sake. I agree with trimming olympics down to its base sports, sports everyone can do so you really get the worlds most impressive athletes because there is a lot of competition. But wrestling is one of those.

Word....!!!

At least keep the basics. I agree less/cheaper/accessible is better. Mos def more inclusive, and I mean that is the point here isn't it? Almost everyone can swim, run, jump, wrestle etc. We should at the very least keep the basics.

WTF is up with even considering things like rollerderby?

[GeneChing]

...but it is a possibility...:o


Will Wushu Replace Wrestling in 2020 Olympic Games? (http://www.isportstimes.com/articles/5816/20130212/wrestling-cut-2020-olympic-games-wushu-replace.htm)
By Melissa Siegel - Posted: 02/12/13 04:13PM EST

http://www.isportstimes.com/data/images/full/2013/02/12/3701-rulon-gardner.jpg
Wrestler Rulon Gardner, bottom, competes at the 2004 U.S. National Wrestling Championships. Gardner won a gold medal in the sport at the 2000 Olympics. (Photo: Creative Commons)

The martial art wushu could replace wrestling in the 2020 Olympics.

According to Reuters, the International Olympic Committee made the surprising decision to cut wrestling from the 2020 games. Per CNN, wrestling was part of the first modern Olympics in 1896 and has been included in all but one Summer Olympics since.

"This is a process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said, per Yahoo Sports. "In the view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in 2020. It's not a case of what's wrong with wrestling, it is what's right with the (other) 25 core sports."

According to the Telegraph, wrestling was eliminated from the Olympics because organizers felt it was not as exciting to watch on television as some other sports. Plus, other events that were thought to be in danger, like taekwondo and the modern pentathlon, ran strong lobbying campaigns in favor of keeping their sport around.

Despite Tuesday's ruling, wrestling will be contested at the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro. There is also a chance it could be reinstated as an Olympic sport before the 2020 games.

The Associated Press reports that wrestling will now join seven other sports that will need to apply for inclusion in the 2020 games. Those events are baseball/softball, karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu.

The IOC will then meet in May to narrow down the list, with the final vote coming at the IOC general assembly meeting in September.

Wushu is perhaps the least known of those sports, at least in the United States. According to the Stanford University Wushu Club, the word literally translates as military art, or the art of fighting. For years the term was interchangeable with "kung fu," but in recent years wushu has become synonymous with performance and sport, while kung fu emphasizes actual fighting.

Wushu has also been competed on the national stage. It has been a medal event in the Asian Games since 1990. In addition, World Wushu Championships have been held in each of the past 11 years.

According to the International Wushu Federation website, wushu taolu, or competitive wushu, involves "fighting" movements" between a pair of people. The sport is split up into several events, including swordplay, spearplay, and three separate styles of boxing.

While it's unknown whether Wushu will take wrestling's place in 2020, it seems unlikely that the latter sport will be reinstated so soon after it was cut. Thus, fans may have to get used to seeing a new sport at the Olympic games.

[sanjuro_ronin]

If wrestling goes than it is quite obvious that no sport is safe.

[Kellen Bassette]

According to the Stanford University Wushu Club, the word literally translates as military art, or the art of fighting. For years the term was interchangeable with "kung fu," but in recent years wushu has become synonymous with performance and sport, while kung fu emphasizes actual fighting.

Now if we could just get that definition of Kung Fu to catch on.....

Wrestling is so obviously the deserving sport out of the 8 contenders. Why would we need Karate when Tae Kwon Do is in the Olympics? Roller sports???? Really? We got gymnastics, who needs Wushu? :cool:

[Punch.HeadButt]

It looks like everyone in that pic just received word of wrestling being cut over the PA system. :D


I gotta agree, wrestling being cut is ridiculous. I would believe silly decisions like this come down to money, especially as far as golf replacing it is concerned. I would think there's a lot more advertising to be sold during a game of golf (though I have no idea if/how individual games affect advertising in the Olympics). Just a shot in the dark, though, I rarely have any idea what I'm talking about.

[GeneChing]

A goodly chunk of my initial research (now very dated) was contained in China Gets the Gold! The Beijing Olympics (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=368) by Gene Ching & Andy Ching, published online over a decade ago. There are so many misconceptions about the Olympics and how it all works.


If wrestling goes than it is quite obvious that no sport is safe. No sport has ever been safe. You're dealing with world class competitors from a very disparate array of sports, each jockeying to grab some spotlight for their event. Competitive? You know it.


I would think there's a lot more advertising to be sold during a game of golf (though I have no idea if/how individual games affect advertising in the Olympics). True for the US, UK and Japan perhaps, but you must consider that the Olympics is international so there are many games that are popular in other regions. The Olympics is the ultimate international competition - each nation focuses on its own fav sports. The advertising money has got to be totally crazy. Imagine how many factors you'd have to take into account internationally.

Note that Wrestling may still have a chance. This decision, to my understanding, isn't final yet.

Why you all hating on roller derby?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rx9AEn2354U/TiJBqzVpSmI/AAAAAAAAAGo/TR5VdmHNxWk/s1600/sexy-hot-roller-derby-chicks-16.jpg

[Punch.HeadButt]

True for the US, UK and Japan perhaps, but you must consider that the Olympics is international so there are many games that are popular in other regions.

Well sure, and ideally it'd be great for every region to have equal pull. But I'm forced to believe the more wealthy any given region is, the more pull it has with the IOC.

I'm not basing that on any concrete knowledge as to the inner workings of that organization, obviously. It's all speculation on my part.

[Lucas]

The only problem is that roller derby chicks, for the most part, do not look like that. There are some pretty serious roller derby teams in this city and for the most part, those chicks are a bit on the....um...hardcore angry man haters side....don't get me wrong, there are some cute derby girls, but it's hit and miss

look for yourself :D spot the diamonds in the rough.

http://www.rosecityrollers.com/teams/

[MasterKiller]

As long as this stays in the Olympics, MK will be pleased

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fruimvo90vA

[MasterKiller]

The only problem is that roller derby chicks, for the most part, do not look like that. There are some pretty serious roller derby teams in this city and for the most part, those chicks are a bit on the....um...hardcore angry man haters side....don't get me wrong, there are some cute derby girls, but it's hit and miss

look for yourself :D spot the diamonds in the rough.

http://www.rosecityrollers.com/teams/

No ****. Rollerderby has the market cornered on fat cow wannabe rock-a-billy skanks.

[Lucas]

Lol!!!!!!!!!!

[GeneChing]

But she is kind of wannabe rock-a-billy. No comment on the skank part. ;)

As amusing as this roller derby tangent has become, for the record, Olympic roller sports also include inline speed skating and roller figure skating. I'm not exactly sure which events are up for the bid. In the same vein, the International Wushu Federation governs both taolu and sanda, but only taolu is part of the Olympic bid, and only solo taolu, limited to a few specific forms.

If the olympics wants to make cuts, well, there's a huge issue with medal count. Every country wants to insert events where they will get more medals. We saw special stipulations with Korea and TKD. Some sports, like the races (swimming and track) seem to me to dole out a ton of medals for each division. I feel some of that could be shaved off, and we could keep wrasslin.

Go Slovenia!

[GeneChing]

Follow the link for the vid. Not sure which TCKFMC year this was exactly, but here's the 2013 TCEC thread.

Good to see that Tiger Claw logo (https://www.tigerclaw.com/home.php) so large. :cool:


Wushu: A new sport for the Olympics? (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141250n)
February 17, 2013 5:00 PM

As wrestling is getting pushed out of the Olympic Games, a new martial art may take its place. Terrel Brown reports.

[David Jamieson]

It looks like everyone in that pic just received word of wrestling being cut over the PA system. :D



read this, looked back at pic, read this again...still laughing. :p

[jdhowland]

Really? Wrestling?! One of the defining sports in the Olympic revival and it is not being renewed. Hm.

Okay, so I've never watched Olymic events and have no interest but it still seems shameful.

Wushu, I suppose has as much right to international notice as Tae Kwon Do ...but it's embarrassing for "real" martial artists.

[SevenStar]

If rollerberby or karate pushes out wrestling, I will never watch the Olympics again...!!!

Sacrificing an ancient sport to accommodate some newschool popular "let's attract the kids" hustle is ridiculous. The olympics were nearing joke status as it was, now this stuff... Boooo....!!!

politics and money. but at least they are keeping judo.

[GeneChing]

...and Wrestling might be back in.


Wrestling, baseball-softball could return for 2020 Olympics (http://www.mercurynews.com/olympics/ci_23344534/wrestling-baseball-softball-could-return-2020-olympics)
Associated Press
Posted: 05/29/2013 08:43:17 AM PDT
Updated: 05/29/2013 08:56:09 AM PDT

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Wrestling, squash and baseball-softball made the IOC short list Wednesday for inclusion in the 2020 Olympics.

Three months after being dropped from the 2020 program, wrestling took a big step toward keeping its Olympic status.

Eight sports were vying for a single opening in the lineup.

Eliminated from contention were five sports -- karate, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and the Chinese martial art of wushu.

The IOC executive board will submit wrestling, squash and baseball-softball to the full IOC assembly for a final decision on Sept. 8 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

"It's a good mix of team sports and individual," IOC vice president Thomas Bach said.

The decision came after the eight sports federations made closed-door presentations to the IOC executive board.

Men's baseball and women's softball, which have been off the program since the 2008 Beijing Games, merged into a single federation to improve their chances.

Squash is bidding for an Olympic spot for a third time.

Wrestling, with a tradition dating to the ancient Olympics, was surprisingly cut from the list of core sports by the IOC board in February. The decision caused an international outcry and prompted the United States, Russia, Iran and other countries to join forces in a bid to bring the sport back.

[lkfmdc]

ah, but the USAWKF and others will still tell people wushu and sanshou are in the Olympics :rolleyes:

[Syn7]

So they are making some major changes these days. Anyone happy with them?

Wrestling out(not final) and pole dancing in(not final). WTF???

I'm curious as to what John Wang thinks about that trade since he's personally invested in both.

For me, it's no contest. I have no issue with pole dancing, but taking away wrestling is absolutely ridiculous. I have yet to hear one person say they are glad wrestling is out. At best, they don't really care either way. Hopefully enough people will come out and support the sport when they have their lil panel in september.

Does anyone else think that the olympics are compromising too much these days? What's next to go? Sprinting? Crazy. If you want to add current fads to the games, trade them for older fads that have lost favor, but not at the expense of the sports that the whole idea was founded upon.

Or they can just expand, but then that messes with the bottom line, and we all know that's the true goal here. So sad what it's become.

[Jimbo]

Yeah, eliminating wrestling from the Olympics is plain stupid. Wasn't it one of the very first Olympic sports?

[David Jamieson]

I stopped caring about the Olympics. They are too politicized.
Not worth being involved in from my standpoint until they change out the entire board of the IOC who have drifted so far from the original vision, it's just a money sack getting pilfered at the expense and to the detriment of a lot of athletes.

[Syn7]

Usually I watch, if it's convenient, wrestling and judo as a VERY distant second. And I'll watch random stuff cause it's on. Maybe I'll watch the daily highlights on the evening news. If they take away wrestling, I won't have anything to watch.

As a kid, not understanding the politics, I loved the olympics. So now it just bums me out.


Oh, I watch gymnastics too. I know that isn't going anywhere, but it has some dumb fad elements too.

[GeneChing]

Wrestling out(not final) and pole dancing in(not final). WTF??? If there's one lesson we have learned from Wushu's Olympic bid, it's that most of the news on what's in and what's out is BS. Pole sports jsut benefited from some viral rumor spreading in the wake of their 1st World Championship. Yes, they submitted a petition to the IOC, but anyone can do that. Pole Sports isn't even an IOC International Federation yet, so they have a long way to go before even getting considered as an event.

That being said, I'd totally watch Olympic pole sports. :D



Believe It Or Not, Future Olympic Games Could Actually Feature Pole Dancing As Newest Sport (http://www.rantsports.com/clubhouse/2013/08/12/believe-it-or-not-but-future-olympic-games-could-actually-feature-pole-dancing-as-newest-sport/)
August 12, 2013 11:08 pm EDT by Marilee Gallagher

If you were to ask the International Pole Sports Federation (IPSF) if pole dancing, something most of us know as an activity done in the strip club, should be considered a sport and worthy of consideration in the Olympics, then the answer you would get is a simple yes.

And not only does the IPSF (which I bet most have never even heard of) think pole dancing, now renamed pole sports, is worthy of inclusion, they are actually pushing for it.

According to several sources the IPSF, which held the first world championship in 2012, has been doing a lot in the recent months to improve its image and change the nature of how everyday people look at pole dancing. In fact, to eliminate some of that burlesque feeling type of stigma, the IPSF has even changed the name from pole dancing to pole sports.

As part of their effort to include pole sports in the Olympics, the IPSF has made changes to their rulebook. These are not limited to a professional sporting dress code, the renaming of some of the classic yet suggestive moves and a ban of props such as top hats and canes. Dancing in an overly erotic manner, as well as removing any articles of clothing, is also expressly forbidden.

Doesn’t quite sound like what you and I might believe pole dancing to be, but that is exactly the point. Because while hearing that pole dancing might be in the Olympics is something that is laughable and almost impossible to believe, the IPSF is taking its reformation project very seriously.

They want that bid and considering that things such as synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics and ice dancing get to exist in the greatest collection of sporting events in the world, it is not unreasonable to think we might one day be watching pole dancing in the Olympic Games with a cleaned-up image.

Because after all, while it may not qualify as a sport, no one can deny the athleticism needed to pole dance.

So get your ones ready, because pole dancing pole sports might be headed toward Olympic glory.

[Raipizo]

How about removing table tennis, or diving. Who even likes to sit there and watch that? Ping pong is fun to play, not so much to watch on tv.

[GeneChing]

Baseball? Softball? You traitor.

What about Wushu? WHAT ABOUT POLE SPORTS!


Jackie Chan supports baseball, softball to return to Olympics in 2020 (http://olympictalk.nbcsports.com/2013/08/14/jackie-chan-baseball-softball-olympics/)
Nick Zaccardi
Aug 14, 2013, 2:40 PM EDT

Baseball and softball have been fighting together to get back into the Olympics, and now they’re getting some help from one of Hollywood’s great fighters.

Jackie Chan was named a Playball2020 ambassador for the World Baseball Softball Confederation on Tuesday, less than a month before baseball-softball faces an International Olympic Committee vote as to whether it returns for the 2020 Olympic Games.

“I have noticed that baseball and also softball have been growing globally and attracting boys and girls to come together to play [a sport],” Chan said in a press release. “The two sports teach children teamwork, discipline — about facing challenges and overcoming difficulties.

“Hence, I support baseball and softball’s inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games and I sincerely wish baseball and softball receive the favorable votes from the IOC members.”

Baseball-softball, wrestling and squash are the three finalists for one spot in the 2020 Olympic program. The IOC will choose one of the three on Sept. 8 in Buenos Aires. Baseball became a regular Olympic sport beginning in 1992, and softball in 1996. The last Olympics for both sports was 2008.

Chan, originally from Hong Kong, has Olympic history. He carried the torch before the 2004 Athens Olympics and sang at the Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies in 2008.

[GeneChing]

Now I understand what happened with Wrestling.



Olympic Wheel of Fortune (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/olympic-wheel-of-fortune.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&)

An Al-Ahram International squash championship in Egypt. Squash may have the most to gain from the Olympics, but its bid is now seen as a long shot.
By DAVID SEGAL
Published: August 31, 2013

ONE of the year’s most heated competitions in all of sports will take place in a Hilton hotel conference room in Buenos Aires. But unless any of the participants get a case of the jitters, you won’t see a lot of sweat. You won’t see many athletes, either, or any courts, nets, uniforms or scoreboards.

Instead, on Sunday, Sept. 8, you’ll see the leaders of three sports federations — wrestling, squash and baseball-softball, which combined last year — presenting finely honed sales pitches to the 104 members of the International Olympic Committee. After each 20-minute spiel, there will be 10 minutes of questions and answers. At some point, the committee members will test their electronic voting equipment with an irrelevant warm-up question. (The group was once asked to choose a favorite of three oceans; the Atlantic won.) Then the members will decide a matter of genuine import: Which of these sports will join the Olympic Games in 2020?

It will be the culmination of a contest that began two years ago and has cost the finalists millions of dollars. But for the winner, the prize is so big that it’s hard to value. Actually, part of it can be valued. Every sport gets a cut of the money generated by the Games’ broadcast and revenue deals, with each share determined by the sport’s popularity, measured by the number of spectators, television viewers and other factors. The pot to be divvied up for sports in the London Games last year is $520 million.

More important, the sport gets the global exposure of billions of television and online viewers and a place in the sports pantheon in which countries worldwide invest, simply because the sport is part of the Olympics. Suddenly, there are youth leagues and commercial endorsements. Medals are at stake, and with them a chance to burnish national self-image.

“The U.S. is a special case because, unlike most countries, it doesn’t have a direct federal government program for sports,” says Michael Payne, the I.O.C.’s former marketing director. “But look at Turkey. It’s currently spending $500 million a year on sports development, and all of that money goes to Olympics-related sports. You’re either at the table or you’re not.”

In the United States, the imprimatur of the Games means universities pay attention. A few years ago, it was hard to find a college team in women’s beach volleyball. The sport is now an Olympics favorite, and there are about 34 college teams, says Doug Beal, the chief executive of USA Volleyball.

“It’s impossible to overstate how significant it is to be included in the Olympics,” Mr. Beal says. “Participation has increased by a factor of 100 or 200. We’ve got high-performance camps, a national junior tour. The Olympics drives kids’ interest. They see it on TV, they identify with the medal winners and they want to play that game.”

This is squash’s third attempt to enter the Olympics, which has capped the total number of sports at 28, and it is the only sport among the finalists that has never been in the Games.

For squash’s ardent fan base, this is more than a little confounding. Every four years, when synchronized swimming scissor-kicks its way onto the world stage, squash aficionados ask: If that sport is in the disco, how long will squash be stuck behind the velvet rope?

Not much longer, if Mike Lee has his way. He is chairman of Vero Communications, a sports lobbying consulting firm that is part of a small but growing industry for campaigns like this. Mr. Lee, a onetime political consultant who is based in London, was hired by the World Squash Federation to oversee its Olympic bid. Among Vero’s recent achievements is guiding rugby sevens into the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Squash was one of the sports that rugby sevens bested.

Working in politics and Olympic sports is not that different, Mr. Lee said. Both need compelling narratives and both need to cater to voters. The squash narrative, as framed by Vero, is all about the game’s global reach, its embrace of innovation and its easy integration into the Games — the event would involve just 64 players from around the world, 32 men and 32 women, in a glass court that could be built anywhere.

“In the final stage of this, we’re also giving a push to the very salient and important point that squash is the only truly new sport in terms of the Olympic program,” Mr. Lee said. “That will feature significantly in our final presentation in Buenos Aires.”

What exactly is the Olympics looking for? The I.O.C. has a dauntingly long list of 39 criteria. The sport should offer gender equity (medals to men and women in roughly equal numbers), excellence around the world (as opposed to a few countries) and popularity among fans and sponsors. Ease of broadcasting the sport is another factor, along with the cost of building a place for competition. There is also the vague but all-important “value added,” defined as “value added by the sport to the Olympic Games; value added by the Olympic Games to the sport.”

Strict rules govern how federations can woo those 104 I.O.C. members, a reaction to the bribery scandal after more than $1 million was spent on wining and dining I.O.C. officials to bring the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City. No gifts. No disparaging the competition. No visiting the homes of I.O.C. members. E-mail and letters are fine. Direct contact is encouraged, so long as it’s at a place like a sporting event.

Squash would be a truly new Olympic sport, notes the consultant Mike Lee, who is overseeing the World Squash Federation bid.

The process, in short, is designed for maximum fairness. But that doesn’t mean every federation has an equal chance, at least not this time. Many Olympic watchers see wrestling as the heavy favorite, which on its face might seem strange, given that the I.O.C. executive board essentially booted the sport from the Games in February. For years, the board criticized wrestling as boring and bewildering to viewers and for failing to update its rules and presentation.

After wrestling showed up on the finalists’ list, many people concluded that the point of this multisport contest had suddenly changed. It was no longer to refresh the Games, as widely believed. It was to give wrestling — which has been linked to the Olympics going back to their birth in 776 B.C. — what a consultant called “the mother of all wake-up calls” — to stun it into modernizing.

It seems to have worked: after its ouster, wrestling immediately started a major turnaround and charm offensive, overhauling its rules. Squash, which Olympics watchers had regarded as the front-runner for more than a year, is now considered a long shot.

Then again, I.O.C. voters are hard to pin down. Some people say a surprise verdict in Buenos Aires is still possible.

“You have 104 free agents here,” said one Olympics consultant who isn’t involved with any of the sports and who requested anonymity for fear of offending decision makers. “They have been known to make multiple commitments, which they can do because the vote is secret. The level of predictability here is lower than any you’ll find in politics.”

ALL three federations have spent the last few months in a lobbying frenzy. But schmoozing every I.O.C. member is a challenge. They are spread around the globe, and no country has enough of them to form a bloc with any heft. The United States has three votes; Russia has four. There are members in Zimbabwe, Italy, New Zealand, Burundi, China and Oman.

Representatives from the federations would reveal little about strategy. Mr. Lee even declined to say who would make squash’s presentation in Buenos Aires, and Narayana Ramachandran, president of the World Squash Federation and the sport’s main Olympics ambassador, declined in early August to discuss his travel plans.

“If people read where I’m going, who I’m meeting, that would reveal strategy,” he said by phone from Chennai, India, where he lives.

Of the three sports in competition, squash has the most to gain from the Olympics. For the uninitiated, the game is played in a what is basically a large, open-air box, with two competitors hitting a ball against the front wall. You win a point if the ball bounces twice before your opponent can reach it; you lose the point if you hit the ball too low on the front wall and strike what is known as the tin, squash’s answer to the tennis net. Often called chess on legs, the sport requires endurance, strength and a lot of strategizing.

In the United States, the game is largely an East Coast phenomenon and is regarded as a game for elite prep schools, colleges and clubs. But it’s an everyman’s workout in countries like South Africa and Australia, where courts are found in places that also have bars and dart boards. There are 50,000 courts in 185 countries, according to the World Squash Federation.

The game is positively obscure compared with its competitors — and, relative to baseball, the pay stinks. The top player in squash last year, Nick Matthew of England, earned $129,592 in prize money, according to ESPN magazine. The average salary for a major-league baseball player that year was $3.2 million.



continued next post

[GeneChing]

Also - see our latest cover story: Wushu Out of the Olympics…Again (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1121)



Squash would be even poorer without the energy and money of one man: Ziad al-Turki. A 48-year-old Saudi Arabian whose father runs Atco, a Saudi-based international conglomerate, Mr. al-Turki became a fan of the game as a boy, playing on a court that an uncle had built on his roof. When he was in his late 30s, Mr. al-Turki lived in Connecticut, where the teaching pro at a local club was a retired squash great named Brett Martin. That convinced him that the game was in dire need of help.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Mr. al-Turki said in a phone interview. “Nobody hit the ball like Brett Martin, and here is this guy, giving lessons for $25 an hour. We became friends, and that’s when I learned that as brilliant as the game of squash is, there was no money in it.”

In 2005, with the permission of the Professional Squash Association, the game’s pro league, Mr. al-Turki organized a tournament in Saudi Arabia with total prize money of $127,500, about double what some tournaments then offered. A group of players soon asked him to join the P.S.A. board, and he is now the organization’s chairman. He has spent a lot of time and more of his personal fortune than he would care to calculate — “I don’t want to scare myself,” he said — revamping the sport.

For a tournament in England, he oversaw the construction of a futuristic, inflatable structure that could be built around a portable court, serving as an eye-catching marquee. He also made the action easier to follow on TV and in the stands, bringing in top-of-the-line video cameras and experimenting with different tints for the court’s glass walls. (He settled on a light shade of purple.) He even changed the color of the ball, which is typically black.

“We went to Dunlop,” the sports equipment maker, “and said, ‘Everybody complains you can’t see the ball on TV,’ ” he recalled. “They made us balls in neon, pink, yellow. It turns out that what looks best is a white ball in a court with purple walls.”

These alterations have made the game more accessible and lent it a youthful cast. Which has made it more appealing to the Olympics and is a big reason that squash is in the hunt in Buenos Aires. Success there would be the greatest moment in squash’s 140-year history, and the Olympics tournament would instantly become the sport’s most prestigious event. A promotional video for the bid shows the world’s top women’s player, Nicol David of Malaysia, saying, “I would happily trade all six world titles for an Olympic gold medal.”

IF squash has the most to gain by inclusion in the Games, wrestling has the most to lose by exclusion. Several Olympics experts said exile from the Games would effectively sound a death knell for the sport, entailing not just the loss of Olympic money but also a loss, or drastic reduction, in subsidies to the 177 national wrestling federations, a vast majority of which are financed by governments.

Wrestling’s journey to the list of finalists began with an act by the I.O.C. executive board that in hindsight looks like that of a furious, passive-aggressive parent. On Feb. 12, the board announced what it called the Olympics’ 25 core sports — and wrestling wasn’t on the list.

The board had been grumbling about wrestling for years. The sport’s federation refused to evolve, and its arcane rules had left many spectators confused about the basics, like who was winning a match. Other sports have enlivened their events; weight lifting, for instance, now relies on the same sort of tension-filled music once heard during the silences on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” The emphasis is on entertainment, excitement and clarity.

Wrestling made no concessions to entertainment, and it had other problems. It awarded more medals to men than to women. It also seemed to take for granted its position in the Games. While other sports carefully filled out a long questionnaire detailing why they should continue to be part of the Olympics, wrestling did such a slapdash job that the I.O.C. sent it back for a do-over, said Anita DeFrantz, an I.O.C. member.

“They didn’t take it seriously,” she said. “One of the questions was, ‘How many continental games does your sport compete in,’ like the Pan Am Games? They put zero. Which isn’t true.”

The federation didn’t even bother to send anyone to the meeting where the I.O.C. listed the 25 core sports — and eliminated wrestling. Some of wrestling’s leaders learned about the disaster on the news.

The cavalier attitude went beyond paperwork. A certain amount of schmoozing is expected of representatives from participating sports, many of whom have set up their federations near Lausanne, Switzerland, the I.O.C.’s base. The International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles — which somehow translates to the acronym FILA — is based about 20 miles from the I.O.C., but until recently, FILA’s leaders kept to themselves.

“I talked to a guy at the I.O.C. who said, ‘I’ve worked here for 14 years and I’ve never met one person from FILA,’ ” said Robert Condron, part of a small armada of consultants and public relations specialists brought aboard FILA after wrestling was pushed out of the Games. “The thing with the I.O.C. is recognition and trust. ‘I know you. I trust you.’ That wasn’t there.”

Four days after the Feb. 12 announcement, Raphael Martinetti, the FILA president, resigned. Wrestling organizations around the world quickly rallied behind Nenad Lalovic, a burly and charismatic Serbian, who became the acting president. He announced changes to the rules almost immediately, all intended to make matches more exciting and easier to follow. (Takedowns, for instance, would be worth two points, making them more valuable than pushing an opponent out of the ring.) The men-to-women ratio in medal opportunities would be improved by eliminating two categories in men’s competition and adding two for women.

In early March, Mr. Lalovic met with Jacques Rogge, the I.O.C. president, to tell him, in effect: message received.

“I said to him, ‘I know why we are out, and we don’t blame anybody but ourselves,’ ” Mr. Lalovic recalled, speaking by phone last week from Buenos Aires, where he had just landed. “We were not awake. We were not listening. We were hardheaded and we have to reverse that situation.”

A budget for a readmission campaign was quickly drawn up, with a ceiling of $2 million, Mr. Lalovic said. He and his staff hired TSE Consulting to develop a strategy and Teneo Holdings, based in New York, to shape wrestling’s presentations. One of the bigger outlays: FILA bankrolled the flights and hotel stays of representatives from 132 countries who traveled to Moscow in May for what was called an Extraordinary Congress, where Mr. Lalovic was formally elected. Simply sending FILA’s entourage of a dozen or so people to Buenos Aires for two weeks will cost, he estimates, more than $100,000.

“We did all that we could in such a short period,” Mr. Lalovic said. “That was our handicap. The other sports had more time to prepare.”

In fact, softball and baseball began trying to reclaim their Olympics spots almost as soon as they lost them, after Beijing in 2008. They were dropped for a variety of reasons, I.O.C. members and consultants say, including baseball’s doping problems and the dominance of a few countries. Then there is Major League Baseball’s refusal to alter its season so the best players can go to the Olympics.

This is a serious impediment because the Games want the highest standard of competition. Undeterred, the leaders of the World Baseball Softball Confederation have been fanning out around the world. In a recent visit to New York, three sat in a conference room with a reporter at a downtown law firm to explain their case. The group included a surprise: a son of Fidel Castro, Antonio, who works for the World Baseball Softball Confederation. A tan, 40-ish man in a dark suit, he looked more like an international banker than his fatigues-wearing father.

“We don’t see this as an issue at all,” Mr. Castro said when asked about baseball’s Major League problem. The reason, it seems, is that if baseball returned, it would happen seven years from now. “We have a long time to find a realistic solution,” he said.

THE time may well be much longer than seven years, given wrestling’s status as the odds-on favorite. But the inclusion of wrestling has caused much head-scratching, even among Olympic higher-ups.

The former executive board member Denis Oswald, an I.O.C. voter and a candidate to replace the current I.O.C. president, told reporters in June that there were “other ways to warn” wrestling that it needed to shape up. Several consultants, and some fans, have described the process as “ludicrous,” given that the original point of this expensive exercise was to bring new blood into the Games.

“I think a lot of people will conclude that this whole thing was a charade,” said Brett Erasmus, author of Brett’s Squash Blog, which has a widget on its front page counting down the seconds until the vote in Buenos Aires. “I’m sure a lot of other sports would conclude the same thing. It is disheartening. You get the sense that we will never have a chance, no matter what we do.”

Mr. Payne, the former Olympics marketing director, thinks that squash’s and baseball-softball’s most likely paths to the Games will come with the election of a new I.O.C. president. That vote is Sept. 10, and Mr. Payne expects that the winner will be less wedded to the current cap of 28 sports in the Games.

Perhaps that president would fast-track the entry of a new sport in a tighter window than the seven years it typically takes. Otherwise, the Olympics roster in 2020 won’t offer anything that could be called new. Unless you count a spiffed-up version of a sport first seen at the Games 2,800 years ago.

[Alex Córdoba]

It will be a tough battle to go against baseball, but I hope wushu wins.

I think with the inclusion of Sanda into the olympics, you will see a heavy increase in interest of Chinese Martial Arts. Especially in terms of people wanting to compete and fight at an olympic level. The inclusion of Sanda will also let the world see what CMA has to offer the martial arts world in terms of full contact applicability.

Baseball seriously? a sport based in 1 country? maybe 2 or 3 but...

What's next 'Chase the cheese down the hill'?

[Alex Córdoba]

That being said, I'd totally watch Olympic pole sports. :D

Men division right?

[GeneChing]

What's next 'Chase the cheese down the hill'?
Wait, there's a sport for that? I'm totally in. Now to round up a team of nacho ninjettes for this.


Men division right? Honestly, I hadn't even considered that. Does pole sports even have a men's division?

[Alex Córdoba]

Wait, there's a sport for that? I'm totally in. Now to round up a team of nacho ninjettes for this.

Honestly, I hadn't even considered that. Does pole sports even have a men's division?

http://m.wsj.net/video/20111007/100711pole/100711pole_512x288.jpg

[Alex Córdoba]

Wait, there's a sport for that? I'm totally in. Now to round up a team of nacho ninjettes for this.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOyQBSMeIhM

[GeneChing]

Men's pole sports would be right up there with men's rhythmic gymnastics for me.

As for chasing the cheese down the hill, are there international competitions? Is it fair to the lactose-intolerent Asian and African nations?

[Rover]

Hmmmmm,if today i make a baby he will be ready for Olympics of 2020.

[GeneChing]

train him in chasing cheese and pole sports.

[GeneChing]

Istanbul would have been crazy...

Madrid and Istanbul Respond Differently to Rejection by Olympics (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/sports/olympics/madrid-and-istanbul-ponder-failure-of-olympic-bids.html?_r=0)
Daniel Ochoa De Olza/Associated Press
Spaniards had hoped that a Madrid Olympic Games could create jobs and revive the country's economy.
By RAPHAEL MINDER and CEYLAN YEGINSU
Published: September 8, 2013

MADRID — Madrid and Istanbul started counting the costs on Sunday of failing once more to be named an Olympic host, after Tokyo was chosen to organize the 2020 Games.

That cost could be higher for Madrid, whose population, hit hard by record unemployment and a long recession, had rallied around the idea that the Games could help create jobs and revive the image and economy of Spain.

In contrast, large groups of people in the central Taksim district in Istanbul celebrated their city’s Olympic defeat on Saturday night. They argued that the Turkish government had tried to use the Olympics as an excuse to ignore environmental concerns and proceed with large-scale building projects.

With 80 percent of its earmarked Olympic venues already completed, Madrid’s bid was centered on a straightforward argument: we have built the sites already, so let us at least use them.

Madrid, Spain’s capital and largest city, now faces a new challenge, as it scrambles to reduce $9.2 billion in debt as it figures out what to do with some of its half-built or underused sports centers, including a water sports complex that was to serve as the Olympic swimming pool. Construction on the aquatic center started in 2004, but the work was halted four years later amid budget overruns as Spain’s construction bubble burst.

Among Madrid’s other underexploited flagship sites is the Caja Mágica, or Magic Box, a tennis center with a retractable roof that opened in 2009, with intentions of holding Olympic events. The center ended up costing $387 million, compared with an initial budget of $158 million, but it has been used little since, except for a Masters tennis tournament held each May.

The voting was carried out in Buenos Aires by secret ballot, making it impossible to know why members of the International Olympic Committee favored Tokyo over Istanbul and Madrid. But a negative factor shared by the two losing cities, their countries’ response to doping in sports, might have played a role.

Turkey recently announced a “zero tolerance” stance on doping after a string of positive test results that led to the ban of more than 30 athletes by the Turkish Athletics Federation. In 2011, however, Turkey lost its World Anti-Doping Agency accreditation after failing to comply with international standards.

A Spanish judge fueled international criticism in April, when she ordered that about 200 bags of blood and plasma be destroyed instead of handing them over to antidoping inspectors. The bags were among evidence seized by the police during a cycling investigation focusing on Eufemiano Fuentes, a Spanish doctor found guilty of endangering public health by providing blood transfusions to cyclists. During his trial, Fuentes said his list of clients also included unnamed athletes from soccer, tennis, boxing and track and field.

The Madrid delegation hoped that the investigation had been put to rest, but the doping issue was raised Saturday before the vote in Buenos Aires, both during Madrid’s presentation to the Olympic delegates and in a news conference.

A few hours later, after Madrid was rejected, disenchantment and sadness spread rapidly among the large crowd that had gathered around Puerta de Alcalá, one of Madrid’s landmarks, where local musicians performed before the vote.

In Istanbul, however, recent social divisions were highlighted Saturday as supporters and opponents of the Olympics gathered at separate sites. After Istanbul failed in its fifth Olympic bid, some cried and others embraced in the ancient square of Sultanahmet. Most just stood still, lowering their Turkish flags.

In Taksim Square, those who had opposed the bid celebrated late into the night. Taksim had been turned into a battleground in June after disputes over the razing of a public park evolved into the largest antigovernment rally the country had had in more than a decade. Analysts have said that one of the largest setbacks for Turkey’s Olympic bid was the government’s harsh crackdown on the protesters.

“We’ve been tear-gassed too many times to have any Olympic spirit left in us,” said Ali Turan, an architect who has been active with the “Boycott Istanbul 2020” campaign in Istanbul. “This city has to learn to value its people and environment before it makes any promises to the world.”

The campaign was led by a group of urban planners and architects who carried out an assessment of Istanbul’s candidate file and concluded that it was a “megaconstruction pitch,” devoid of the Olympic ideals of legacy, spirit and sustainability.

“In Turkey’s candidate file, there are no environmental assessments, no ecological consideration or evaluations of social impacts for those that will be displaced from their homes,” the group said via e-mail.

Separately, clashes between the police and students at Middle East Technical University in Ankara began Friday and continued into Saturday, with the police firing tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators who were protesting deforestation on their campus. The deforestation was led by the city to accommodate a road project.

After the Olympic vote, Ankara’s mayor, Melih Gokcek, wrote on Twitter that the antigovernment protesters were traitors who caused Istanbul to lose its bid.

Ceylan Yeginsu reported from Istanbul.

[GeneChing]

They need new uniforms for women like TKD (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1246292#post1246292).


Wrestling, IOC make right moves in getting sport back on 2020 Olympics program (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/wrestling-ioc-make-right-moves-in-getting-sport-back-on-2020-olympics-program/2013/09/08/a2ed9cc4-18a2-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html)
By Tracee Hamilton, Published: September 8

The International Olympic Committee made the right decision — and how often do we hear that? — when it voted Sunday to return wrestling, at least provisionally, to the Olympic program.

The fact that wrestling, one of the original Olympic sports — and I don’t mean original as in 1896, but original as in 708 B.C. — had to fight for its Olympic life was a defibrillator to the heart of the sport’s leadership and community: shocking, painful, and probably life-saving. Losing the international platform of the Olympics would have had a trickle-down effect, at least in this country, to college and high school programs.

The sport is resinstated for the 2020 and 2024 Games seven months after losing its spot, beating out baseball-softball and squash.

The 2020 Summer Olympics goes to Tokyo: The Japanese capital beats out Madrid and Istanbul for the honor of hosting the international athletic spectacle.

In February, the IOC voted on 25 “core” sports that would make up the Olympic program beginning with the 2020 Games. In a stunning move, wrestling was not on the list. To the sport’s credit, it immediately began grappling (couldn’t resist) with its perceived problems. Three days after the IOC’s decision, Raphael Martinetti resigned as president of FILA, the sport’s international governing body. Nenad Lalovic of Serbia was named acting president, and the sport immediately turned its attention to problems with its rules, gender equity and the internal workings of FILA.

On May 18, FILA met in Moscow to vote on the changes, and Lalovic was elected president, losing the “acting” from his title. Eleven days later, the IOC trimmed its list of eight possible sports for 2020 to three — and wrestling made the cut. The timing was no coincidence.

Baseball-softball and squash also made it to Sunday’s final vote. The pairing of baseball and softball is not advantageous to softball, but that sport has not spread as far or as fast as organizers hoped when it was added to the Games. It’s a loss for U.S. fans, because the American team was always good and fun to watch. Wrestling got 49 votes; the baseball-softball bid got 24 and squash got 22.

Karate, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu were on the original list of eight possible inclusions, and the idea that this was wrestling’s competition was pretty sad, but indicative of the problems the IOC perceived in the running of the international body and the rules of the sport.

FILA changed some of its inner workings. It added two weight classes for women in time for the 2016 Games. And it adopted new rules that will make the action more aggressive. There will be less stalling and more scoring, and the winner will be decided on total points, not the best two-of-three periods. Stalling will be penalized. Offensive takedowns will earn two points. The matches will be faster and more exciting.

Wrestling needed that. The sport had changed quite a bit since 708 B.C. but not so much since 1896 — at least not enough. The world is more fast-paced, and the Olympics are trying to keep up. Even creaky sports like modern pentathlon — which I love, by the way — have avoided the chopping block by shortening their formats and creating more action.

The Committee for the Preservation of Olympic Wrestling moved quickly and boldly to improve the sport, at least by the standards of the IOC, and while the changes may not seem great to purists, the fact is wrestling needs the Olympics more than the Olympics needs wrestling. Sadly, the sport is still on trial; wrestling will be on the 2016 program and Sunday’s vote means it will be included in 2020 and 2024 as a provisional sport, which means it will continue to have to fight for its place in the Games.

Wrestling has 177 federations on six continents. At the 2012 Games in London, a record-setting 71 countries qualified for the Olympics, with 29 winning medals. That’s an impressive number, but without the Olympics, a wrestler’s ultimate goal would be the world championships, which get almost no attention.

The Olympics are not perfect: the haughty corruption of the IOC, the annoyance of NBC’s “packaging,” the debt and abandoned buildings they often leave in their wake, the failed drug tests, and on and on. But they have always been a favorite with me because every four years, we are able to see sports that otherwise don’t garner a lot of media attention, at least not in this country. Wrestling, modern pentathlon, team handball, Nordic combined — those are truly Olympic sports.

The IOC made the right decision Sunday. We should savor it — it happens with even less frequency than the Olympics themselves.

[Syn7]

This pleases me. I watched it real time and I was happy to see such margins. I would take wrestling over all the other options. Not even a thought. Now we have over a decade to get our house in better order and start lobbying now. No matter what is brought in, you can't take out wrestling. That is just retarded. That would be like taking out the 100m or high jump. I mean... COME ON!!! :p

[Dragonzbane76]

wrestling, one of the oldest Olympic sports and they decided to take it out.....WTF is wrong with people. Glad they have gotten their wits back about them and put it back. One of the few Olympic sports I actually watch, (besides the Judo comps.)

[GoldenBrain]

***Applause***

Yay, wrestling is back!

I was floored when they removed it. I mean, the first games were foot races, then boxing, wrestling and pankration which is a combination of boxing and wrestling, followed by chariot racing, discus and javelin throwing. Unless I'm mistaken, which is always a possibility, that was pretty much it for centuries. To remove a core event like wrestling was just stupid crazy.

[GeneChing]

wrestling, one of the oldest Olympic sports and they decided to take it out.....WTF is wrong with people. Glad they have gotten their wits back about them and put it back. One of the few Olympic sports I actually watch, (besides the Judo comps.) I was as upset as any of us to hear Wrestling was out, but after reading this article (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1247518#post1247518) (skip down to the 2nd post for the Wrestling info, I'm surprised it stayed in so long. It wasn't about the sport itself. It was about the international governing body overseeing the sport. After working with some NGBs, I completely understand how this could happen.

[Alex Córdoba]

Men's pole sports would be right up there with men's rhythmic gymnastics for me.

Both are wrong, but not as wrong as Olympic shooting. At least they have to move and sweat.

As for the lactose-intolerant people... well they can chase a pumpkin.

[Dragonzbane76]

from what I read on your article it seems like someone dropped the ball on the wrestling side of the negotiations, of course it could be on both. I don't really like them changing rules per say, but it's not a bad thing for them to enact the takedown 2 point rule. I think it would add a bit more excitement. someone messed up for sure.

[GeneChing]

Indeed, Dgb76, it seems like it was more an issue of the NGB getting way too full of itself and basically ****ting in their own nest. It's one thing to have a sport that an audience can't follow. But it's a terminal thing not to give the IOC face when they are ultimately the ones that sign off on your sport. That's just foolish, but I can totally imagine how an NGB could get its head that far up its own ass. It's sad for the athletes.

[Syn7]

I was as upset as any of us to hear Wrestling was out, but after reading this article (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1247518#post1247518) (skip down to the 2nd post for the Wrestling info, I'm surprised it stayed in so long. It wasn't about the sport itself. It was about the international governing body overseeing the sport. After working with some NGBs, I completely understand how this could happen.

Yeah, like I said in my last post. We now have over a decade to get our house in order. They fired across our bow, now we need to come correct or step off. It's no secret that I'm hoping for the former.

[Syn7]

I was as upset as any of us to hear Wrestling was out, but after reading this article (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1247518#post1247518) (skip down to the 2nd post for the Wrestling info, I'm surprised it stayed in so long. It wasn't about the sport itself. It was about the international governing body overseeing the sport. After working with some NGBs, I completely understand how this could happen.

While I understand why people are bored and confused by wrestling, I have to disagree with you, Gene. It's not wrestling's job to change in order to be considered a core sport. Personally, I never found it boring and I liked the rules as they were. It's also not wrestling's job to explain itself to people who haven't bothered to figure it out on their own given the massive resources available to all. I have issue with modernizing something simply to create wider appeal to people who are unwilling or unable to grasp it as it is. To me, wrestling's real problem is promotional, for sure, but it can be promoted as is. I'm getting tired of all this "it's a fast paced world now" bull****. We gonna start giving MLB pitchers a time clock like in basketball now too because people find it boring to wait so long between pitches? Should TKD remove the gear in order to see more KO's? You see where I'm going with this, right? The fact that the IOC would leave wrestling, regardless of it's rule set, out of the core group is simply ridiculous. This is about money, not core sports. They would rather have something like downhill combat skateboarding or watch a woman wrap herself around a pole because more knuckledraggers would tune in, plain and simple. To disguise this as a spanking is crazy. It was a concerted effort to push out one sport to bring in another sport with a better draw. Nothing more, nothing less. All that other stuff is straw man bull****! ;)

[Syn7]

from what I read on your article it seems like someone dropped the ball on the wrestling side of the negotiations, of course it could be on both. I don't really like them changing rules per say, but it's not a bad thing for them to enact the takedown 2 point rule. I think it would add a bit more excitement. someone messed up for sure.

Nah... It's about the money Lebowski! More people like baseball than wrestling, that's all. More fans = more money. Squash never had a real chance IMO. If it had been between baseball and squash, I believe that more of the wrestling votes would have went to baseball. The Olympics is a for profit venture now. It shouldn't be, that goes directly against the spirit of the games, but that's the world we live in now. Nice huh.



BTW. I like the shooting. My grandmother competed, not in the olympics, just nationally. So I was exposed to that at quite a young age.

[Lucas]

hey now....im totally down with downhill combat skateboarding AND girls wrapping themselves around poles.....

[Syn7]

hey now....im totally down with downhill combat skateboarding AND girls wrapping themselves around poles.....

Yeah, for sure, but not in exchange for wrestling. Take out rhythmic gymnastics or something. There is more than enough gymnastics represented at the games. And they should be, but we can live without ribbon dancing.

[Lucas]

no ribbon dancing? what will the world come to?

i agree with you though.

is ribbon dancing really an olympic event?

[Syn7]

no ribbon dancing? what will the world come to?

i agree with you though.

is ribbon dancing really an olympic event?

Yeah, it really is. Youtube rhythmic gymnastics and tell me that isn't ribbon dancing! :D

It's not that I have a problem with rhythmic gymnastics. It's a very difficult thing to do. But gymnastics has a ton of events, I chose to pick on that one cause it's an easier target and to be honest, I like the rest. I could say the same thing about swimming. Drop synchronized and a few of the forty thousand events they have. It's just insulting that so many sports are over represented and now they thought about removing a TRUE core olympic sport and replace it with stuff that is relatively new.

I don't care about discus, but I would never even consider taking it out. The reasons should be rather obvious IMO.

[GeneChing]

While I understand why people are bored and confused by wrestling, I have to disagree with you, Gene. It's not wrestling's job to change in order to be considered a core sport. Personally, I never found it boring and I liked the rules as they were. It's also not wrestling's job to explain itself to people who haven't bothered to figure it out on their own given the massive resources available to all. I have issue with modernizing something simply to create wider appeal to people who are unwilling or unable to grasp it as it is. To me, wrestling's real problem is promotional, for sure, but it can be promoted as is.
I don't think that's quite the problem addressed in the article. Keeping an audience is surely an important factor (and TKD might be updating itself to increase audience appeal with new sexier uniforms for females (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1246292#post1246292)) but that's a challenge all sports face. Keep in mind, I'm a former NCAA fencer and saw some radical changes in the sport to 'increase audience appeal' including the reversal of how the sport was scored (fencing used to be scored by points lost not points won which was confusing as the loser had the higher score) and the electrification of saber. But as I read that article, it's more about the NGB of Wrestling being ****y idiots. They weren't participating in IOC events and were flippant about necessary paperwork. With dozens of international sports bending over backwards to get Olympic acceptance and all of the others struggling to maintain status, that's not an intelligent approach. Clearly, it was the fault of the NGB, In order to be Olympic, a sport must toe the line to the IOC. They failed to do so and a blatantly brash way and got ejected.

[Syn7]

I don't think that's quite the problem addressed in the article. Keeping an audience is surely an important factor (and TKD might be updating itself to increase audience appeal with new sexier uniforms for females (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1246292#post1246292)) but that's a challenge all sports face. Keep in mind, I'm a former NCAA fencer and saw some radical changes in the sport to 'increase audience appeal' including the reversal of how the sport was scored (fencing used to be scored by points lost not points won which was confusing as the loser had the higher score) and the electrification of saber. But as I read that article, it's more about the NGB of Wrestling being ****y idiots. They weren't participating in IOC events and were flippant about necessary paperwork. With dozens of international sports bending over backwards to get Olympic acceptance and all of the others struggling to maintain status, that's not an intelligent approach. Clearly, it was the fault of the NGB, In order to be Olympic, a sport must toe the line to the IOC. They failed to do so and a blatantly brash way and got ejected.

I hear you, and like I said, we now have ten years to get our house in order. But I still think it comes down to money. It's kinda like saying the US invaded Iraq cause saddam was a bad guy. Sure, that may be a good reason for some, but it clearly was not the main motivation. I feel that is a fair parallel for this scenario. If wrestling was the top earner, we all know they would have been on their doorstep with paperwork in hand. Know what I mean?

Wrestling is a core olympic sport, no matter what happens. That's just that.

[bawang]

im not watching Olympics until they introduce naked oiled pankration and armored race in full hoplite armor.

[GeneChing]

I'm sure you all answered the opening question correctly.


Karate’s long fight to make the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/05/09/karates-long-fight-to-make-the-2020-tokyo-olympic-games/)
Krista Rogers 21 hours ago

http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/karate.jpg?w=580&h=387

Question: Which of the following is not an official Olympic medal sport? Is it A) Judo, B) Taekwondo, or C) Karate? If you guessed C) Karate, then you answered correctly.

It may come as a surprise to you that karate is not an official Olympic sport, despite its widespread popularity throughout the world. In fact, karate has been rejected by the International Olympic Committee on three separate occasions. However, the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics have created a new movement for official adoption, along with a new strategy.

Judo made its Olympic debut in the 1964 Tokyo games, having been featured in all but one Olympics up to the present. Taekwondo made its grand entrance during the 2000 Sydney games. So why is karate – far older than established Olympic events such as table tennis, water polo, and volleyball – not among them?

There are actually a multitude of reasons, including the fact that there are so many different styles of karate, each one having different lineages, focuses, philosophies, and number of forms. It’s near impossible to pick just one to use for official purposes at the Olympics — it would be like proclaiming that one style more “correct” than the others. However, karate is already an official sport in the Asian Games, which are held every four years and are billed as the second-largest multi-sport event after the Olympics. So perhaps all hope is not lost…

Enter Kyokushin (極真; literally: “the ultimate truth”), a style of full contact karate that was founded in 1964 by the Korean-Japanese martial artist Masutatsu Oyama/Choi Young-Eui. There are estimated to be over 12,000,000 practitioners of Kyokushin karate spread out over 120 countries around the world, with over 230 organizations in Japan alone. Due to its strong emphasis on hard techniques (a martial arts term that refers to the priority given to countering force with force), Kyokushin has often been seen as actual combat fighting rather than a sport, a view which has hindered its progress towards inclusion in the Olympics.

▼Kyokushin’s emphasis on contact sparring
http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/karate2.jpg?w=580&h=384

Tokyo’s winning bid to host the 2020 Games has sparked renewed efforts to include karate as an Olympic sport for the first time ever in the country of its origin. However, this time, the endeavor will aim to promote both a traditional style of karate with softer techniques (in which the force of the opponent is deflected while exerting minimal force), as well as the hard-technique Kyokushin style. The two styles will try to advance together in the hopes of making the Olympic cut. If their joint effort succeeds, they will become two separate Olympic disciplines, similar to how both freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling are included on the official roster.

Furthermore, if both of the styles make the cut this time around, there may be negative consequences for taekwondo, the Korean martial art with an emphasis on powerful kicking. Taekwondo has already suffered from poor TV ratings during past Olympics, and with its similarities to Kyokushin karate, there has already been talk of dropping it from the Games altogether.

▼A video in which a Kyokushin karate fighter goes head to head with a taekwondo martial artist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eoo__0Ki0c

This writer is by no means an expert in the various disciplines of martial arts, let alone karate, so if you have any reflections about the possible inclusion of karate in future Olympics, please feel free to share your insights with the rest of us in the comments section below.

[GeneChing]

That would certainly be a slap in the face to wushu promoters. But maybe they need a slap in the face. ;)


IOC passes votes on bidding, sports and TV channel (http://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/IOC-opens-session-on-Thomas-Bach-s-reform-program-5942175.php)
By STEPHEN WILSON, AP Sports Writer
Updated 7:01 pm, Monday, December 8, 2014

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/33/50/31/7243369/3/628x471.jpg
IOC President Thomas Bach delivers a speech at the start of the 127 th International Olympic Committee session in Monaco, Monday, Dec. 8, 2014. The IOC has approved plans for a more flexible sports program, a move that could lead to the inclusion of baseball and softball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The International Olympic Committee voted in favor of the revised system on the opening morning of a special two-day session to adopt President Thomas Bach’s 40-point

MONACO (AP) — Thomas Bach never thought it would be this easy.

In rapid fashion and without a single vote against or even an abstention, the International Olympic Committee on Monday overwhelmingly approved its president's 40-point reform package — the biggest shake-up of the organization in decades.

"Even in my wildest dreams I would not have expected this," Bach said after the delegates unanimously backed his plans for a more affordable bidding system, creation of an Olympic television channel and a more flexible sports program. "That it would go this way was a very, very positive surprise."

Bach moved decisively since his election in September 2013 to put his stamp on the presidency and rally support for his "Olympic Agenda 2020" reforms, marking the most sweeping changes since the Salt Lake City bid scandal in 1999.

A vote scheduled to take place over 1 ½ days was wrapped up in just one day. The only thing that didn't pass unanimously was a suggestion for a coffee break

"I hope in 20 years I can look back to this day with satisfaction and happiness and maybe a little bit of relief," Bach said.

Among other measures approved was the rewording of the IOC's non-discrimination policy to include sexual orientation — a move that followed the controversy over Russia's law against gay "propaganda" ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The IOC abolished the cap of 28 sports for the Summer Games to move to an "events-based" system that would allow new competitions to come in, while keeping to about 10,500 athletes and 310 medal events.

Host cities will also be allowed to propose the inclusion of one or more additional events for their games.

The new rules clear the way for Tokyo organizers to request that baseball and softball be included in the 2020 Games. Both sports, dropped after the 2008 Beijing Games, are highly popular in Japan.

"Today, there is excitement circulating around the baseball and softball world and there is great hope that our athletes will now have a real opportunity ... to play for their country, aiming to win an Olympic gold medal," said Riccardo Fraccari, president of the World Baseball Softball Confederation.

Other sports like squash and karate are also hopeful of joining the Tokyo program. In addition, new disciplines and events within existing sports could also be considered. Some events may need to be dropped to make room for new ones.

"This is a major breakthrough," senior Canadian member **** Pound said. "We were at a dead-end situation with 28 sports. This provides the flexibility we need."

The new bidding process, meanwhile, is aimed at making the system cheaper and more flexible to attract future candidates — including the option of holding events outside the host city or country.

The votes came at a time when many countries have been scared off by the costs of hosting the Olympics, including the reported $51 billion associated with the Sochi Games. Several cities withdrew from the bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics, leaving only Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, in the running.

The new system makes the process more of an "invitation" and allows prospective candidates to discuss their plans in advance with the IOC to tailor games to their own needs.

In the most radical change, the reforms open the door to possible joint bids by cities, neighboring countries or regions.

Bach said joint bids or events held in different countries would be allowed only "in exceptional cases."

The IOC backed the launch of a digital TV channel — possibly as early as next year — to promote Olympic sports between the games and engage with young viewers. The channel will feature material from the IOC's archives, transmit some international sports competitions and offer a promotional platform for bid cities.

The IOC said the channel — to be run by the Madrid-based Olympic Broadcasting Services — will cost $600 million to operate over the first seven years, with the goal of breaking even in the first decade.

The new Principle 6 clause says the Olympics should be free of discrimination "of any kind, such as race, color, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."

Former Olympic diving gold medalist Greg Louganis said the new wording removes all doubt about the interpretation of the clause.

" Today's move will make it clear about open hearts and open minds in the spirit of the Olympic Games," he said.

[GeneChing]

If ninjitsu made the Olympics....if only. ;)



http://jto.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/n-ninja-a-20150309-870x617.jpg
Former Tourism Agency chief Hiroshi Mizohata (first row, right) joins governors and mayors from Mie, Shiga and Kanagawa prefectures in dressing up as ninja Sunday to announce the launch of the Ninja Council to promote tourism to Japan. | AFP-JIJI
National

Ninja Council is formed to kick up tourism (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/09/national/cowabunga-japan-forms-ninja-council-kick-tourism/#.VP8hV-EbO_s)
AFP-JIJI, Kyodo
Mar 9, 2015

Officials are enlisting one of Japan’s best-known historical figures — the ninja — to encourage tourism.

Governors and mayors from prefectures around the country traded their usual bland suits for ninja costumes Sunday to announce the launch of the Ninja Council.

The council sees local authorities forming alliances with tourism agencies to thrust the ninja — usually known for their ability to become nearly invisible — into the spotlight.

The council will gather and provide information on its website about the feudal-era martial arts masters and assassins and about tourist destinations, organizers said.

It will also respond to inquiries from home and abroad, and is scheduled to host events to boost the popularity of the dark warriors.

Ninja are a “subject that always comes up whenever we go abroad to promote tourism,” said Hiroshi Mizohata, former head of the Japan Tourism Agency, which is part of the transport ministry.

The not-so-stealthy move comes as villages, towns and cities turn to tourism as a promising driver of economic growth ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

“Through ninja, we want to revive our communities,” said Mie Gov. Eikei Suzuki, which is known as the home of the Iga school of ninjutsu.

[GeneChing]

If it comes down to Karate (http://www.martialartsmart.com/karate-styles.html), Wushu (http://www.martialartsmart.com/kung-fu-tai-chi-shaolin-styles.html) or Ninjitsu (http://www.martialartsmart.com/ninja-styles.html), you know where my alliance lies. ;)



Wushu Bids Again for Olympic Inclusion (http://en.yibada.com/articles/17730/20150307/wushu-bids-again-olympic-inclusion.htm)
EL Borromeo | Mar 07, 2015 07:43 AM EST

http://data.en.yibada.com/data/images/full/22615/wushu-is-a-chinese-martial-art-regularly-featured-at-asian-wide-sports-events.jpg?w=685
Wushu is a Chinese martial art regularly featured at Asian-wide sports events. (Photo : pl.wikipedia.org)

The International Wushu Federation recently announced its plans to bid again for Wushu’s inclusion in the Olympics.

In a Jakarta Post report, Anthony Goh, the federation's executive vice president said that they "have to undertake another bidding process."

Goh further emphasized the need to expand the reach of the Chinese martial art. Wushu has been a regular feature during Asian multi-sports events such as the Southeast Asian Games and the Asian Games.
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Meanwhile, Wushu enthusiasts and advocates are eyeing on the increased participation of Africans and Americans once the bid is approved. According to them, joining this sport could aid their chances, as they have previously missed out to the combat sort like wrestling.

According to Goh, Wushu will be featured in the upcoming All-African Games in August. It will also land a spot at the 2019 Pan American Games where athletes from over 41 countries in the North, Central and South America will participate.

"We need to develop regions where Wushu is less developed. We have to feature more often in multi-international games, like the African Games and the Pan American Games," he remarked.

Wushu was among the eight sports vying for inclusion in the 2020 Olympics. However, it failed to make it on the shortlist of three chosen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

However, after the IOC overhauled a number of rules in a December meeting which allows sports to have an easier way of having an Olympic spot, Wushu advocates still see a future for the martial art to be included in the future editions of the international games.

Meanwhile, Wushu is also expected to be included in the 2020 Games of Tokyo line-up.


poor photo choice...:rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

There are YouTube vids of all the sports mentioned if you follow the link. I only cut & pasted the Wushu one because our forum only allows one vid per post so to post them all would have been laborious.


7 Weird Sports That Could Be in the Next Olympics (http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/races-sports/7-weird-sports-that-applied-to-be-in-the-next-olympics-20150615)

http://assets-s3.mensjournal.com/img/essential/7-weird-sports-that-could-be-in-the-next-olympics/618_348_7-weird-sports-that-could-be-in-the-next-olympics.jpg
Olympic Events
Credit: Richard Bouhet / AFP / Getty Images

Sometimes the Olympics feels a lot more like Color War at a teen sleepaway camp than an actual world-class athletic competition. Most kids in America grow up playing Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, or even soccer, minus the bribes and fraud (probably).

But if you've ever wondered where they pick up unique and sometimes weird sports, short of the bucket brigade and parachute games, that seem to only really have a home in the Olympics, the list of semi-mainstream, non-traditional games is about to get longer.


Some 26 sports have applied for inclusion at the 2020 Tokyo Game, ranging from some we know very well, like baseball, softball, and football, to the wild and wacky like korfball. Tug-of-war is looking to make an appearance at the Olympics for the first time since 1920, so look for recruiting offices to pop up near the local all-you-can-eat buffets.

Here are seven wild and potentially awesome new Olympic sports that have applied.

Bowls
This is basically lawn bowling, in which the objective is to roll weighted balls as close to a target without actually hitting it. Because hitting a bowl is an entirely different activity.

Floorball
Also known as floor hockey. No ice, no checking, but floorball is pretty badass. Maybe you played it in gym class. A ball is used in place of a puck, goalies wear similar gear, and some of these dudes can flat out dangle.

Korfball
Basketball, but without a backboard. Or dribbling. Players pass and shoot a soccer ball — yes, a soccer ball — into a suspended basket at either end of a court that looks just like a basketball court. It was actually in the Games as a demonstration sport in 1920 and 1928.

Netball
Very similar to korfball, but netball actually has a net instead of a weaved basket to shoot at. According to Netball America, one of the best parts of the game is the self-confidence participants build through playing netball.

Flying Disc

Yes, it's absolutely Ultimate Frisbee. Just like your friends played on the quad in college. But for Olympic medals this time.

Orienteering
Basically "The Amazing Race," in which participants use navigational skills, a map, and compass to navigate from place to place against a clock. Mix that with cross-country running, and you get orienteering, a game where the best performance enhancer is an iPhone with Google Maps.

Wushu
A Chinese blend of martial arts and dance, similar to a gymnastics floor routine, that can be an exhibition or actual hand-to-hand combat. Competitive wushu is made up of two elements: forms and sparring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuyM2DVpIHU

The International Olympic Committee will narrow the list down to the most, ahem, serious contenders later this month. A final ruling will be made by August 2016, leaving aspiring orienteering participants plenty of time to calibrate their compasses.

Here is a list of all 26 international sporting federations to apply for a spot in 2020.

• World Air Sports Federation (FAI)
• International Federation of American Football (IFAF)
• World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC)
• World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS)
• Bowls Sports World Confederation (CMSB)
• World Bowling (WB)
• World Bridge Federation (WBF)
• World Chess Federation (FIDE)
• World DanceSport Federation (WDSF)
• International Floorball Federation (IFF)
• World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF)
• World Karate Federation (WKF)
• International Korfball Federation (IKF)
• International Netball Federation (INF)
• International Orienteering Federation (IOF)
• Federation of International Polo (FIP)
• International Racquetball Federation (IRF)
• International Federation of Roller Sports (FIRS)
• International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC)
• World Squash Federation (WSF)
• International Sumo Federation (IFS)
• International Surfing Association (ISA)
• Tug of War International Federation (TWIF)
• World Underwater Federation (CMAS)
• International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation (IWWF)
• International Wushu Federation (IWUF)

[GeneChing]

Wushu in shortlist of added events for 2020 Olympics (http://www.ibnlive.com/news/sports/wushu-in-shortlist-of-added-events-for-2020-olympics-1010453.html)
Posted on: 01:48 PM IST Jun 23, 2015
IANS

Tokyo: Wushu has been included in a shortlist of sports seeking to join the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The Tokyo Olympic Organising Committee accepted eight of the 26 sports that sought to be added to the 2020 Games, including a joint bid from baseball and softball. The seven others were bowling, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, squash, surfing and wushu, reports Xinhua.

http://img01.ibnlive.in/ibnlive/uploads/666x444/jpg/2015/06/wushu_getty2306.jpg

The Tokyo Games organisers could further trim down the list before they submit the final list to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by September 30. The IOC will vote on which events will be added to the 28 core sports at its Session in August ahead of next summer's Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

After years of efforts to be added as an Olympic programme, Wushu, a traditional Chinese sport, finally has another chance after the Chinese failed to add it to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Chinese fans are pleased with the news and at the same time cautious about the sport's Olympic future. But some are concerned that Wushu's similarity with other combat sports like judo and taekwondo may well affect its chance.

Similarity to judo (http://www.martialartsmart.com/judo-jujitsu-styles.html) and taekwondo (http://www.martialartsmart.com/tae-kwon-do-styles.html)? I think not.

[GeneChing]

This really doesn't have any impact on the IOC's decision at all, but it is amusing that Wushu is on the bottom.


3:44 pm JST
Jun 24, 2015 GAMES
Vote Results: Bowling, Karate Top Readers’ Choices for Tokyo Olympics (http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/06/24/vote-results-bowling-karate-top-readers-choices-for-tokyo-olympics/)
By WSJ STAFF

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-JB558_jtokyo_G_20150624020416.jpg
A mother and her son receive a bowling lesson in New Jersey, circa 1955. Getty Images

One of America’s favorite pastimes and Japan’s traditional martial arts sport were the sports readers would most like to see added to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Following the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee’s announcement Monday that it had narrowed down the list of sports that might be added to the Games, Japan Real Time asked readers to pick their favorite.

Bowling received about half of the roughly 40,000 votes cast as of 2 p.m. Wednesday, while karate got 17,304.

Ranking well behind in third place was baseball/softball with only 1,008 votes, followed by surfing, roller sports and squash. The two least popular choices were sport climbing and wushu, another martial art.

The organizational federations of the eight sports will have until July 22 to submit more detailed proposals. The committee will then choose one or two sports and submit its proposal to the International Olympic Committee, which will make the final decision in August next year.

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-JB560_jtokyo_G_20150624021517.jpg

[David Jamieson]

This really doesn't have any impact on the IOC's decision at all, but it is amusing that Wushu is on the bottom.

Wow...
It wasn't so long ago that the Japanese were obsessed with Baseball. What happened?

[GeneChing]

Baseball first became a demo sport in 1904, made official medal status in 1992, and was voted out alongside Softball last time in London (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?63163-2012-London-Olympics) in 2012.

[GeneChing]

2015 Wushu U.S. National Team Trials
(http://www.si.com/more-sports/photos/2015/07/24/2015-wushu-us-national-team-trials/start)
Wushu, also known as Kung-Fu, is a Chinese Martial Art and is one of eight finalist sports being considered for inclusion at the upcoming 2020 Olympics in Japan. It consists of different techniques that involve many acrobatic spins and flips along with power. Former wushu celebrities include Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li, who practice it in Hollywood action movies. Here are some photos from the recent U.S. Trials.

http://cdn-jpg.si.com/sites/default/files/styles/si_gallery_slide/public/images/A_Team-Amy_Li-YDX_1637.jpg
http://cdn-jpg.si.com/sites/default/files/styles/si_gallery_slide/public/images/A_Team-Emily_Fan-XYP_5253.jpg
http://cdn-jpg.si.com/sites/default/files/styles/si_gallery_slide/public/images/B_Team-Isabella_Miller-XYP_5180.jpg
http://cdn-jpg.si.com/sites/default/files/styles/si_gallery_slide/public/images/C_Team-Priscilla_Lee-XYP_5129.jpg
http://cdn-jpg.si.com/sites/default/files/styles/si_gallery_slide/public/images/Hopeful-Audrey_An-XYP_5331.jpg

32 pix in the gallery but I'm only posting a few SH (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?41007-Sword-hotties)s.

[SteveLau]

The way I see it is that Wushu only has hard contenders, karate and squash, to make the 2020 Olympic programme. Of course, I hope Wushu win the entry ticket.



Regards.

KC
Hong Kong

[GeneChing]

The IOC recognizes Bridge as a sport? :confused:


Ultimate waits for Olympic moment? (http://www.bendbulletin.com/home/3392759-151/ultimate-waits-for-olympic-moment#)
By Victor Mather / New York Times News Service
Published Aug 5, 2015 at 12:08AM

It is a great moment for undergrads hanging out on college quads everywhere. Ultimate Frisbee has been officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee.

But this does not mean that the sport — commonly known as simply “ultimate” — will take its place in the Summer Games alongside venerable sports like track, basketball and synchronized swimming.

Ultimate instead joins a ragtag group of sports that are “recognized” but not actually in the Olympics.

In June, the IOC chose eight of these as candidates to be added to the 2020 Games: baseball/softball, bowling, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, squash, surfing and wushu, a martial art. The choice will be made next summer, and in all likelihood only one or two will make the cut.

That leaves ultimate on a still lower tier that includes sports like American football, auto racing, chess and sumo.

Here is a look at 10 of those IOC-recognized sports, any of which could, theoretically, be as big as, well, team handball.

Air sports

What is it? A wide variety of sports taking place in the air, including parachuting, hang gliding, ballooning and airplane racing.

Who is the Babe Ruth of the sport? Larry Tudor was known as Part Bird for his hang gliding feats in the 1980s.

Who will get the medals if it joins the games? The wealthiest European countries and the United States hold most of the records in these expensive sports.

Is there a movie about it? Phileas Fogg (David Niven) begins his journey “Around the World in 80 Days” (1956) in a balloon, although he soon changes his mode of transport.

Bandy

What is it? Ice hockey on a much larger rink with more players.

Who is its Babe Ruth? Peter the Great was said to have been an enthusiast.

Who will get the medals? Russia and Sweden dominate competition for both men and women.

Is there a movie? Not really, but a character in “There Will Be Blood” (2007) is named Bandy.

Boules

What is it? Also called bocce, bowls, or pétanque, it involves rolling balls as close as possible to another ball.

Who is its Babe Ruth? Umberto Granaglia, who won 13 world titles.

Who will get the medals? At the last World Games, an event featuring non-Olympic sports, France and Italy won the men’s gold medals, as you might expect, while China picked up two women’s golds.

Is there a movie? “Blackball” (2003) features Vince Vaughn as the agent of a bad boy British bowls player.

Bridge

What is it? A card game played by partners.

Who is its Babe Ruth? The actor Omar Sharif was a top-level bridge player and author.

Who will get the medals? The United States and Western Europe dominate the Bermuda Bowl, the most prestigious event. Bridge could also bring Monaco a chance for its first Olympic medal.

Is there a movie? “Grand Slam” (1933) starred Paul Lukas and Loretta Young. “It is not an attempt to elucidate the fine points of the game, but merely a popular entertainment,” said The New York Times.

Dance sport

What is it? Competitive ballroom dancing.

Who is its Babe Ruth? Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova, a Lithuanian and a Russian now representing the United States, have won seven consecutive world titles.

Who will get the medals? The United States, if Bizokas and Demidova are still active.

Is there a movie? “Strictly Ballroom” (1992) and “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012).

Floorball

What is it? Indoor hockey using a plastic ball with holes.

Who is its Babe Ruth? Mika Kohonen has been voted best player in the world five times.

Who will get the medals? Sweden or Finland.

Is there a movie? According to an IMDB summary of the short film “Onnelliset läskit” (2010): “Little Esa is a talented floor ballplayer who is worshipped by his father. After a well-played game, Esa accidentally bumps into Elvis. The singer instantly becomes Esa’s one and only idol.”

Life saving

What is it? Several events that test lifeguard skills, including swimming under obstacles, recovering a submerged dummy from underwater and pulling a teammate by a rope. Events can take place in a pool or in the ocean.

Who is its Babe Ruth? Cornelia Carl of Germany holds the longest standing world record, in the stillwater boat event.

Who will get the medals? Australia, especially in the open water events.

Is there a movie? Although lifeguards have played key roles in movies and in “Baywatch,” competitive life saving awaits its definitive cinematic treatment.

Netball

What is it? Basketball without backboards, played chiefly by women.

Who is its Babe Ruth? Irene van Dyk of New Zealand has won her country’s sportswoman of the year award and is the most capped player in netball history.

Who will get the medals? Australia and New Zealand dominate.

Is there a movie? In the Patrick Dempsey romantic comedy “Made of Honor” (2008), a Scotsman who has only netball experience dominates some Americans in a pickup basketball game.

Pelota vasca

What is it? The term covers a variety of Spanish court sports. One variant is the sport known as jai alai, which can be bet on in Florida.

Who is its Babe Ruth? Mariano Juaristi Mendizábal, known as Atano III, dominated the sport in the 1940s.

Who will get the medals? Spain, of course, but Argentina, Mexico and France have also collected many world championship medals.

Is there a movie? “Pelota” (1983), a documentary, features Atano III and other greats of the game.

Tug of war

What is it? Two sides tug on a rope until one wins. It was included in the Olympics from 1900 to 1920.

Who is its Babe Ruth? Edgar Aaybe was a Danish journalist covering the 1900 Olympics when he was asked to join the Swedish team. They won.

Who will get the medals? Western European teams for men. Taiwan has won numerous women’s gold medals at the World Games.

Is there a movie about it? “Made of Honor,” the movie that gave a shout out to netball, also includes a tug of war scene. All it needs is Patrick Dempsey playing jai alai to be complete.

[David Jamieson]

The IOC recognizes Bridge as a sport? :confused:

They recognize curling, a sport where you can play through at least 4 or 5 games easily while drunk, overweight and with a cigar hanging out of your mouth.
The IOC is not recognized as being deeply thoughtful... :D

[Jimbo]

I wish the writers of those articles wouldn't equate modern performance wushu with all CMA. It's funny the one article says that Bruce Lee trained it. Modern wushu routines would have been the antithesis of what BL would have practiced.

It seems that people in general aren't as impressed with the flashy, acrobatic wushu forms to the same degree they were back in the '80s. Most that remain in awe tend to be people who aren't accustomed to seeing wushu performances at all. And as for pure flash, many of the 'XMA' people have surpassed the wushu people in some areas.

I wonder if MMA will become an Olympic sport. That might resonate.

[David Jamieson]

I wish the writers of those articles wouldn't equate modern performance wushu with all CMA. It's funny the one article says that Bruce Lee trained it. Modern wushu routines would have been the antithesis of what BL would have practiced.

It seems that people in general aren't as impressed with the flashy, acrobatic wushu forms to the same degree they were back in the '80s. Most that remain in awe tend to be people who aren't accustomed to seeing wushu performances at all. And as for pure flash, many of the 'XMA' people have surpassed the wushu people in some areas.

I wonder if MMA will become an Olympic sport. That might resonate.

Pankration deserves to be reinstated as Olympic sport!

[GeneChing]

...but not wushu.


Karate, Surfing Among Five Sports Likely to Join 2020 Olympics (http://www.wsj.com/articles/karate-surfing-among-five-sports-likely-to-join-2020-olympics-1443436960)
Baseball also likely to return to the games under updated IOC rules that make adding sports easier
By Eleanor Warnock
Sept. 28, 2015 6:42 a.m. ET

TOKYO—Five additional sports are likely to join the Olympic Games in 2020, marking a departure from past Olympics, which it was extremely difficult for new sports to join.

Tokyo’s organizing committee Monday proposed five additional sports for inclusion in the 2020 Summer Games: karate, sports climbing, surfing, skateboarding and, under a combined bid, baseball and softball. The International Olympic Committee will make the final decision in August, 2016.

“I think this is a wonderful package of events,” additional event panel head Fujio Mitarai told reporters.

If ratified by the committee, the new sports would serve as evidence that recent changes to IOC rules have succeeded in making it easier for additional sports to be added.

In December 2014, the committee nixed a 28-sport limit, and instead set a cap of 10,500 athletes and 310 medal events at the Summer Games. That means there is no limit on the number of sports, only on the number of medals. Monday’s proposal would add 18 medal events and an additional 474 athletes to the menu.

The new committee guidelines allow the host countries to propose the addition of one or more additional events for their own editions of the Games.

It would be the first Olympic appearance for all of five sports except for baseball and softball. Baseball joined the Olympics as a medal sport in 1992 and softball joined in 1996. The committee voted a decade ago to remove the sports after the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“We just want to bring it back for all the young girls who had their Olympic dreams interrupted,” said Don Porter, former International Softball Federation president, in an email. Mr. Porter helped softball get its first chance at the Olympics.

Because the new IOC rules give the host city a say in nominating additional sports, both baseball and karate were seen as strong contenders. Karate’s roots lie in what is now Okinawa prefecture, Japan. Baseball is Japan’s most popular spectator sport. Nippon Professional Baseball had the second-highest total attendance of any domestic sports league in the world in 2014.

Mr. Mitarai also said appeal to younger people was an important consideration in the panel’s decision.

“I think that the Olympic Games are an event that should reflect the trends of the times through youth,” he said, citing surfing, climbing and skateboarding as three such sports.

The other finalists not chosen were bowling, squash and wushu.

Write to Eleanor Warnock at eleanor.warnock@wsj.com

[GeneChing]

Read this over the weekend - it's a more thorough look at the potential of Olympic Karate (http://www.martialartsmart.com/karate-styles.html).


Which Kind of Karate Has Olympic Chops? (http://www.wsj.com/articles/which-kind-of-karate-has-olympic-chops-1443206488)
‘Noncontact’ style hopes to be in Games, splitting sport’s world; rewarding kicks

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-KM334_KARATE_J_20150925121909.jpg
Karate hopes to be an event in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. Photo: TORU YAMANAKA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By Eleanor Warnock
Sept. 25, 2015 2:41 p.m. ET
15 COMMENTS

TOKYO—Practitioners of one of the world’s most popular martial arts are beating themselves up over which form of the sport should be represented at the Olympics.

Karate is one of eight events competing to debut in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. But which karate? The group that the International Olympic Committee has recognized to bid—the World Karate Federation—allows only minimal contact. Yet there are millions of karate fighters in other schools who do follow through with their punches.

Their leaders are crusading to have both styles represented at the Olympics or risk chopping off the dreams of many of the world’s karate kids.

The road to the Tokyo Olympics has already been bumpy for Japan. The government scrapped plans for a new Olympic Stadium (too expensive) and an Olympic logo (allegations of plagiarism). The decision on new events, due Monday, is the next big test on the horizon.

Karate has missed a spot in the Olympics three times before, but officials say the Japan venue and support from high-profile politicians means the time is right to strike. Or just lightly strike, depending on whom you talk to.

It isn’t just honor on the line—there is also money involved. In many countries, inclusion in the Olympics is a prerequisite for receiving government subsidies.

Sayaka Kato, 22 years old, has a world championship under her belt in Shinkyokushin karate, a full-contact style with sharp kicks and punches that uses minimal body protection.

“I’ve gone through my entire life with these rules. I don’t want to compete under different rules,” she says.

The Japan Fullcontact Karate Organization estimates 20 million people around the world practice full-contact karate. Russian President Vladimir Putin has an honorary black belt. The group’s founder was known to kill bulls with his bare hands.

The group collected a million signatures across Japan last year backing the idea of two karate events at the Olympics, full-contact and noncontact. “Millions of children won’t be able to follow their dreams if there aren’t two rules,” says the full-contact group’s chairman, Kenji Midori.

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/HC-GT901_Kato_G_20150925153027.jpg
Sayaka Kato

But the campaign has failed to budge the World Karate Federation, which promotes a style known as noncontact karate. The International Olympic Committee has recognized the World Karate Federation as the international governing body of karate since 1999.

“Having techniques that reward injuring the opponent is not the best message we could give as a sport karate federation,” says World Karate Federation President Antonio Espinos, whose group says it represents more than 90% of organized karate followers.

Mr. Espinos has seven children, all of them with experience in the martial art. “I would have never brought them to practice karate if they told me it was full-contact karate,” he says.

There is another option—koshiki or “safe contact” karate, in which contestants wear a chest protector and headgear. The founder of this school’s federation is Masayuki Kukan Hisataka, who taught karate to the late actor Bruce Lee among others.

Mr. Hisataka says Olympic spectators want to see real hits and action, not shadow boxing.

“The reason karate didn’t get into the Olympics up until now was precisely that it was a noncontact sport,” says Mr. Hisataka. Ciaran Mitchell, who founded a koshiki contact karate organization in the U.K., says karate needs to excite spectators. “I don’t have anything against noncontact karate, but it’s like archery with no target. I can show you how I aim the bow but I don’t shoot.”

Though they are skilled at landing blows in the ring, the contact-karate adherents are relative lightweights in the political arena. The head of the Japan Karate Federation, the local noncontact group, is Takashi Sasagawa, a former longtime member of parliament in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and son of the late right-wing billionaire Ryoichi Sasagawa. Mr. Sasagawa served as a state minister under then-Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, and Mr. Mori is now head of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee.

The fight has extended to history, with each side saying its version is faithful to the martial art’s origins.

Karate arose over centuries in the southern island of Okinawa, now a part of Japan, with influence from Chinese martial arts. While little is known about the sport in its infancy, historians say it probably wasn’t about being nice to the other fellow. But after the sport was introduced to mainland Japan in the 1920s, noncontact karate evolved.

Rival schools call the noncontact version too Europeanized and say it benefits long-legged Europeans by rewarding kicks more. “Japan won’t be able to get medals in the Olympics,” says Mr. Hisataka, the “safe contact” proponent.

But Toshihisa Nagura, general secretary of the World Karate Federation, says the noncontact sport inherits the “kata” portion of karate practiced from the early days, in which practitioners carry out moves against an invisible opponent. “Traditional elements were preserved exactly as the old days,” he says.

People familiar with the talks say Tokyo Olympic organizers are likely to include karate in their recommendations for new Olympic sports, which must be ratified by the IOC next year. Others under consideration include bowling, squash and surfing.

Proponents of full-contact karate say they will keep fighting if karate gets in the Olympics, pointing out that the Games feature multiple forms of many sports like swimming and wrestling.

Ms. Kato, the 22-year-old karate champion, sees the culmination of dreams that began when she was a little girl and watched the powerful kicks of her older brother when he was practicing karate.

“I want to win a gold medal with our rules,” she said.

Write to Eleanor Warnock at eleanor.warnock@wsj.com

[GeneChing]

You really would have to had drank up all the Kool-Aid to be completely surprised.



Wushu "disappointed" but "not completely surprised" by Tokyo 2020 failure (http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1030651/wushu-disappointed-but-not-completely-surprised-by-tokyo-2020-failure)
By Daniel Etchells Saturday, 3 October 2015

http://cdn1.insidethegames.biz/media/image/12199/o/Anthony%20Goh,%20executive%20vice-president%20of%20the%20International%20Wushu%20Fed eration,%20is%20now%20looking%20ahead%20to%20wushu %27s%20attempts%20to%20earn%20a%20place%20on%20the %202024%20Olympic%20
Anthony Goh, executive vice-president of the International Wushu Federation, is now looking ahead to the sport's attempts to earn a place on the 2024 Olympic programme ©Getty Images

The International Wushu Federation (IWUF) was “disappointed” but “not completely surprised” after the sport it governs missed out on a recommendation to be added to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic programme, executive vice-president Anthony Goh has said.

Wushu was one of three sports cut from the proposed additions earlier this week along with bowling and squash.

Baseball and softball, karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were the five selected, with a final decision due at next summer's International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Rio de Janeiro.

"When we heard the results from the Tokyo 2020 Committee we were disappointed although not completely surprised," Goh told insidethegames.

"The seven sports we were competing with all had strong attributes, but we feel wushu has risen to the level of world-class sport.

"We will continue our efforts towards inclusion [at] the Olympic Games and we feel very optimistic that 2024 will be wushu’s year.

"Wushu is developing rapidly around the world now, and our newly-launched social media campaign will undoubtedly give our sport a digital potential to reach a new generation."

http://cdn1.insidethegames.biz/media/image/12202/l/Wushu%20was%20one%20of%20eight%20sports%20in%20the %20frame%20for%20Tokoy%202020%20inclusion,%20but%2 0missed%20out%20along%20with%20bowling%20and%20squ ash.jpg
Wushu was one of eight sports in the frame for Tokyo 2020 inclusion, but missed out along with bowling and squash ©IWUF

Wushu’s latest disappointment follows its failure to make the final shortlist in the first Tokyo 2020 bidding process, which culminated in wrestling retaining its place on the Olympic sports programme with a clear-cut victory at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires.

Owing to its cultural significance in China, the IOC allowed organisers of the Beijing 2008 Olympics to hold a wushu tournament in parallel with the Games, despite the sport not being an official demonstration sport.

The tournament helped give wushu a huge global boost with IWUF membership increasing from 116 to 149 countries following the conclusion of the Games.

Wushu was one of four demonstration sports at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games, alongside climbing, roller skating and skateboarding.

What 'newly-launched social media campaign' is this? :rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

Compare Goh's response above to that of the other rejected sport, squash. :rolleyes:


Mon Sep 28, 2015 10:57am EDT Related: SPORTS
Squash 'devastated' by Tokyo Olympics snub (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/28/us-olympics-2020-sports-squash-idUSKCN0RS14420150928)
TOKYO

The head of the World Squash Federation (WSF) said he was devastated for the sport's millions of followers after squash was again overlooked for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Squash was among eight sports short-listed for possible inclusion at the 2020 Olympics but failed to make the final list of five sports, recommended by Tokyo's organizers on Monday.

The five proposed for the 2020 Summer Games were baseball/softball, karate, skateboard, sports climbing and surfing. Squash, bowling and wushu all missed out.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will make the final decision next year on which sports will be accepted for Tokyo, choosing from the five that were recommended.

"I don't believe we could have done more to get our message across to both the Tokyo 2020 Games hosts and the IOC how Squash could bring something special as an addition to the Programme," WSF president Narayana Ramachandran said in a statement.

"I know I speak on behalf of the millions of squash players around the world for whom the opportunity of seeing their sport participate in the Olympics has been an absolute priority -- and, like me, they will be heartbroken."

Squash, played in more than 185 countries, was one of three sports short-listed for full inclusion at the Tokyo Olympics when the IOC voted on the program at its 125th Session in Buenos Aires two years ago.

Wrestling won that vote for inclusion ahead of baseball/softball and squash but the losers were thrown a lifeline when the IOC later decided that future Olympic host cities could select extra sports they wanted to see contested at the Games.

"However, this is not the end for squash," added Ramachandran. "Our sport, played by vast numbers week in and week out, flourishes at every level from recreational to events around the world.

"We will go from strength to strength while we continue to target participation at a future date in the Games."

Squash has made great strides in modernizing the sport, with the Professional Squash Association (PSA) taking the game to iconic venues such as New York City's Grand Central Station.

Alex Gough, the PSA chief executive, said the latest setback should not detract from its success.

"The Olympic Games should be the pinnacle of any athlete's career and inclusion in the Tokyo 2020 Games would be a defining moment for squash and our athletes and to know that dream is once again out of reach is naturally a difficult proposition for the sport," Gough said in a statement.

"But I feel we can take a lot of positives from the huge ground we have made over the last decade -- transitioning into a bourgeoning global sport that is now broadcast in almost 100 countries worldwide."

(Writing by Patrick Johnston in Singapore; additonal reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Julian Linden)

[GeneChing]

Karate (http://www.martialartsmart.com/karate-styles.html) is looking good


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IOC/CHRISTOPHE MORATAL
DATE 01 JUN 2016


IOC EXECUTIVE BOARD SUPPORTS TOKYO 2020 PACKAGE OF NEW SPORTS FOR IOC SESSION (https://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-executive-board-supports-tokyo-2020-package-of-new-sports-for-ioc-session)

THE EXECUTIVE BOARD (EB) OF THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE (IOC) TODAY SUPPORTED THE PROPOSAL TO ADD THE PACKAGE OF FIVE NEW SPORTS TO THE PROGRAMME OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020. IF APPROVED AT THE 129TH IOC SESSION IN RIO DE JANEIRO IN AUGUST, THE CHANGE WOULD BE THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE EVOLUTION OF THE OLYMPIC PROGRAMME IN MODERN HISTORY.

The five sports — karate, skateboarding, sports climbing, surfing and baseball/softball — offer a key focus on youth, which is at the heart of the Games vision for Tokyo 2020. They represent a combination of well-established and emerging sports with significant popularity in Japan and beyond. They include team sports and individual sports; indoor sports and outdoor sports; and ‘urban’ sports with a strong appeal to youth.

The package of five sports will now be submitted to the IOC Session. These sports are considered on top of the athlete and event quota recommendations for Olympic sports outlined in Olympic Agenda 2020, and will not take places away from athletes in existing Olympic sports. Discussions on the event programme in the existing 28 Olympic sports for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 are ongoing, and will be finalised by the IOC Executive Board in mid-2017.

The Organising Committee for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 proposed the new sports in response to the new flexibility provided by Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC’s strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement, to encourage innovation in the Olympic programme. Olympic Agenda 2020 gives host cities the option of suggesting new sports and events for inclusion in their edition of the Games.

The host city selections are not binding on future Games hosts.

The inclusion of the new sports would add 18 events and 474 athletes to the Olympic programme in Tokyo, without impacting existing sports. The package promotes gender equality, with each of the five sports having equal numbers of teams for men and women, while also focusing on innovative and exciting sports for Japan and the wider international community.

###

The International Olympic Committee is a not-for-profit independent international organisation made up of volunteers, which is committed to building a better world through sport. It redistributes more than 90 per cent of its income to the wider sporting movement, which means that every day the equivalent of USD 3.25 million goes to help athletes and sports organisations at all levels around the world.

###

For more information, please contact the IOC Media Relations Team:
Tel: +41 21 621 6000 email: pressoffice@olympic.org, or visit our website at www.olympic.org.

Videos
YouTube: www.youtube.com/iocmedia

Photos
For an extensive selection of photos available shortly after each event, please follow us on Flickr.
To request archive photos and footage, please contact our Images team at: images@olympic.org.

Social media
For up-to-the-minute information on the IOC and regular updates, please follow us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

[GeneChing]

https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Images/OlympicOrg/News/2016/08/03/2016-08-03-five-sports-tokyo-thumbnail.jpg?interpolation=lanczos-none&fit=around|1060:600&crop=1060:600;*,*
IAN JONES/IOC
DATE 03 AUG 2016
IOC APPROVES FIVE NEW SPORTS FOR OLYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020 (https://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-approves-five-new-sports-for-olympic-games-tokyo-2020)

THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE (IOC) TODAY AGREED TO ADD BASEBALL/SOFTBALL, KARATE, SKATEBOARD, SPORTS CLIMBING AND SURFING TO THE SPORTS PROGRAMME FOR THE OLYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020.

The decision by the 129th IOC Session in Rio de Janeiro was the most comprehensive evolution of the Olympic programme in modern history. Plans call for staging the skateboarding and sports climbing events in temporary venues installed in urban settings, marking a historic step in bringing the Games to young people and reflecting the trend of urbanisation of sport.

The Organising Committee for the Tokyo 2020 Games proposed the five new sports in response to the new flexibility provided by Olympic Agenda 2020.

Today’s vote was the culmination of a two-year process that began with the unanimous approval of the IOC’s strategic roadmap in 2014. The recommendation to give Organising Committees the flexibility to propose new sports for their edition of the Games was intended to put even more focus on innovation, flexibility and youth in the development Olympic programme.

Tokyo 2020, the first Organising Committee able to take advantage of the change, submitted its proposal for the five new sports to the IOC in September 2015.

IOC President Thomas Bach said, “We want to take sport to the youth. With the many options that young people have, we cannot expect any more that they will come automatically to us. We have to go to them. Tokyo 2020’s balanced proposal fulfils all of the goals of the Olympic Agenda 2020 recommendation that allowed it. Taken together, the five sports are an innovative combination of established and emerging, youth-focused events that are popular in Japan and will add to the legacy of the Tokyo Games.”

Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori said, “The inclusion of the package of new sports will afford young athletes the chance of a lifetime to realise their dreams of competing in the Olympic Games – the world's greatest sporting stage – and inspire them to achieve their best, both in sport and in life.”

The additional sports in Tokyo will not impact the athlete or event quotas of existing Olympic sports or be binding on future host cities. The current athlete and event quotas are unaffected.

The IOC considered a variety of factors when assessing the proposal, including the impact on gender equality, the youth appeal of the sports and the legacy value of adding them to the Tokyo Games.

The inclusion of the new sports will add 18 events and 474 athletes, with equal numbers of women and men for all sports except baseball/softball, which will have the same number of teams but different player totals, because softball teams have 15 players whilst baseball teams have 24. Tokyo 2020 will rely heavily on existing and temporary venues to stage the competitions.

Discussions on the event programme in the existing 28 Olympic sports for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 are ongoing, and will be finalised by the IOC Executive Board in mid-2017.

###

The International Olympic Committee is a not-for-profit independent international organisation made up of volunteers, which is committed to building a better world through sport. It redistributes more than 90 per cent of its income to the wider sporting movement, which means that every day the equivalent of USD 3.25 million goes to help athletes and sports organisations at all levels around the world.

###

For more information, please contact the IOC Media Relations Team:
Tel: +41 21 621 6000 email: pressoffice@olympic.org, or visit our website at www.olympic.org.

Videos
YouTube: www.youtube.com/iocmedia

Photos
For an extensive selection of photos available shortly after each event, please follow us on Flickr.
To request archive photos and footage, please contact our Images team at: images@olympic.org.

Social media
For up-to-the-minute information on the IOC and regular updates, please follow us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Beijing is probably annoyed at this. :rolleyes:

[SteveLau]

I support Sanda to be included in the Olympic Games. With some adaptation in training, many martial stylists (including Taekwondo) can then compete in the event. Let's keep up with our effort and hope to make it a reality in the near future.



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[mickey]

Greetings,

They should simply categorize the combative sports under the word which happens to be the modern variant of a much older term: Pankration.

mickey

[MightyB]

Beijing is probably annoyed at this. :rolleyes:

They (Beijing) should be. Wushu already has a worldwide structure and organization for competition. Wushu is better for spectators to watch, and Sanda is way more exciting than point sparring kumite. The IOC f*cked up. They should have included Wushu before Karate if they want to attract a younger audience.

[SteveLau]

They (The IOC ) should have included Wushu before Karate if they want to attract a younger audience.

We cannot turn back the clock. China started to open up and develop in the early 1980s. But Karate was already an event in the Olympic Games then.




Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[GeneChing]

I support Sanda to be included in the Olympic Games.


Wushu is better for spectators to watch, and Sanda is way more exciting than point sparring kumite.

Sanda has never been part of Wushu's bid to be part of the Olympic Games. Only Taolu. :o

[Jimbo]

Becoming an Olympic sport may not be great for karate, if what's happened to TKD is any indication. But as long as they don't mess it up (i.e., "Olympicize" it) too much, it'll probably still remain better than Olympic TKD.

As far as wushu taolu ever being accepted into the Olympics, even though they seem perfectly suitable for Olympic-style competition, IMO that would only provide further confirmation in the minds of non-CMAists (and non-MAists in general) that CMA are only flashy dance/performance routines with no martial applications whatsoever.

[GeneChing]

... I just can't get past the title "WTF Brain Trust Huddles...."


Game Changers: WTF Brain Trust Huddles in Seoul to Upgrade Taekwondo Before Tokyo 2020 (http://www.worldtaekwondofederation.net/game-changers-wtf-brain-trust-huddles-in-seoul-to-upgrade-taekwondo-before-tokyo-2020/)

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SEOUL, Korea (October 17, 2016) – How to upgrade the game? This is arguably the biggest question facing taekwondo as it enters the long cycle of preparation for the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020.

Fortunately, there are precedents, as, for much of its history, the WTF has been introducing changes and innovations.

Following the 2008 Beijing Olympics – plagued by controversies over scoring and refereeing – the sport’s future on the Olympic program was in jeopardy. The WTF instituted a reform drive. The mission was clear: Improve the transparency and fairness of the game.

The key breakthrough to realize this was the introduction of the electronic protector and scoring system (PSS). The PSS makes all points scored immediately visible to the crowd, while obviating human error in judging. Referee training and education was massively upgraded and the Instant Video Replay system was introduced. Thanks to these developments, taekwondo was controversy-free in London 2012 and Rio 2016 and is now a firm fixture on the Summer Games program.

But there have been drawbacks. The PSS – like all technologies – is imperfect. It has also altered the way the game is played: With the power component removed, taekwondo has gone from knockout mode to point-scoring mode. This has resulted in a cleft between “old school” taekwondo – the powerhouse contact sport of the past – and “new school” taekwondo – the modern, tactical game, which prioritizes front foot kicks and favors tall, skinny players.

Even many exponents of “new school” saw they prefer “old school” techniques and fighters, who tend to be head-hunters and spin-kickers. But “new school” dominates the medal tables. Even elite exponents of “old school” taekwondo – who include some of the most crowd-pleasing fighters in the game, such as Moldova’s Aaron Cook and Turkey’s Servet Tazegul – find it hard to win with traditional fighting style in the current rules and gear.

This is not to say that Rio was dull: In fact, there were some classic finals – such as the Jordan’s Ahmad Abughaush versus Russia’s Alexey Denisenko and Great Britain’s Jade Jones vs. Spain’s Eva Calvo Gomez – and incredible crowd support. But with the 2016 Games over, a four-year window of opportunity has opened for the WTF to make changes and re-inject spectacle back into the game. The aim is for taekwondo at Tokyo 2020 to be not only fair and transparent, but also to dazzle and excite.

If that happens, it will open the way for taekwondo to be not just the hugely successful participation sport which it is – the WTF has 80 million members globally – but also a global spectator sport. Once crowds increase, global media will get into the action and elite fighters and teams will benefit from enriched sponsorship opportunities.

So, there is much at stake. The game-changing process gets underway when the WTF invites its top coaches and executives to a five-day brainstorm in Seoul on Oct. 17th.

“The Rio Olympics was a continuation of transparent and successful taekwondo competition from London 2012 and we need to prepare for the coming Tokyo 2020. In order to make a better sport, it is very important to hear opinions from you in order to make the best game,” said WTF President Chungwon Choue in the opening speech.

From Oct. 17th-21st the first-ever WTF Coach Seminar will take place, with 30 top coaches invited from around the world. “The coaches can ask questions of the WTF on the policy side – this is the first time we have given them a platform to speak for themselves,” said WTF Director General Jin-bang Yang. “The WTF expects more of these opportunities, so coaches will have more chance to influence policy – especially Competition Rules, championship management, and ranking and qualification policy.”

The coaching seminar will be one component of the WTF Coach Forum, which will take place at the same time and same location, with members of the WTF Technical Committee giving presentations and holding dialogs with the coaches. Changes will be discussed in four categories: competition rules; systems (such as rankings and qualification); image of the game (such as uniform designs and sport presentation); and PSS. “Those are the main areas of business,” said Yang. “Changes to rules and systems are things we can change in a short time, so we will concentrate on discussing these two. The other things will take more time.”

On Oct 20th, having exchanged ideas and elicited feedback from the coaches, the Technical Committee will present proposed changes to top-level WTF executives – the organization’s president, secretary general, director generals and Continental Union presidents. The ideas that both parties – the technical committee and the executive team– agree upon will be presented to the WTF General Assembly in Burnaby, Canada in November, on the sidelines of the World Taekwondo Junior Championships.

Those changes voted in will be applied at WTF championships from 2017. For more on how these important developments unfold – watch this space.

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[GeneChing]

I trust Japan will do Karate (http://www.martialartsmart.com/karate-styles.html) right. Who here remembers the scandal when Korea launched TKD (http://www.martialartsmart.com/tae-kwon-do-styles.html)?


Karate Olympic debut shines light on martial art (https://www.japantoday.com/category/sports/view/karate-olympic-debut-shines-light-on-martial-art)
SPORTS OCT. 25, 2016 - 02:30PM JST

https://japantoday.scdn2.secure.raxcdn.com/images/size/x/2016/10/73cbe28204038bef4ef6b4285aeac7fb9fb24531.jpg
A karate competition takes place in Tokyo on August 22, 2016, to select Japanese representatives for the world championships in Linz, Austria
AFP

NAHA — Hollywood may have kicked karate onto the world stage, but its first-ever Olympic inclusion at the Tokyo 2020 Games promises to shine a light on the rich history of the discipline.

At 78, sensei Masahiro Nakamoto has been waiting decades for this decision, insisting there is far more to the martial art than the caricature depicted in films such as “The Karate Kid” and by action stars Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

“This is the art of defence,” the karate master told AFP at his dojo in Naha, Okinawa—an island chain some 600 kilometers (375 miles) from the southern tip of mainland Japan.

“You don’t go just kicking and punching, you receive your opponent’s blow. Defending yourself translates into offence,” he added.

At the Tokyo Games, 80 competitors will take part in the Karate event. It joins surfing, skateboarding, climbing and baseball-softball as new sports included for the 2020 edition.

“The dreams of the world’s karate athletes came true when the (International Olympic Committee) made its decision,” said Japan Karate do Federation vice president Shigeo Kurihara.

“It’s an historic event—it was a day of joy for all of us.”

A blend of indigenous fighting styles, karate was born in Okinawa in the 15th century when the area was ruled by the independent Ryukyu Kingdom. Strong trading links meant the sport was also influenced by Chinese martial arts.

It is far older than the modern Olympics and today has at least 10 million registered practitioners worldwide, and yet it has struggled to make the case for inclusion in the Games.

By contrast, judo, a Japanese martial art, and Korea’s taekwondo are already permanent fixtures on the roster. Judo made its Olympic debut when Tokyo hosted the 1964 Games while taekwondo made its first appearance at the global event in 1988.

Integrating karate into the Olympics has been delayed by divisions in the movement around the world, with stalwarts long preferring to adhere to their interpretation rather than to work together to create an global art form.

“The variety of styles – more than 20 – complicated efforts to unify karate,” said Francis Didier, vice president of the World Karate Federation.

“It took a bit too long to modernise the rules of competition,” he admitted.

Sport karate, for example, calls for competition rules where opponents have to control their blows, while traditional karate allows for harder shots but requires significant protective gear, such as boxing gloves and helmets.

The martial art was only brought to Tokyo in the early 20th century when Gichin Funakoshi, regarded as the father of modern karate, moved from Naha.

“Okinawa was the place where karate’s spirituality developed,” explains Kurihara.

Frustrations remain however, that Okinawa’s role in the development of karate has been airbrushed out of history. For Nakamoto, the Olympic Games in four years time, is a chance to redress that.

“This is a great chance to show the world where karate has its roots. The world may be surprised to know that it was developed here,” he said, adding that it was inexorably linked to the island chain’s politics.

When the Ryukyu Kingdom ruled Okinawa for more than 400 years starting in the 15th century, brewers hired karate masters to protect shipments of indigenous rice-based liquor called Awamori, Nakamoto explained.

A vital tool of diplomacy at the time—keeping leaders on good terms with China and Japan.

“Brewers could sell their surplus so it was the jobs of karate masters to protect convoys from robbery,” Nakamoto said.

“In summer, they would rest outside and drink the spirits—so it became part of the skill, to defend ourselves from attack while drunk, or asleep.”

Karate expert and author Stephane Fauchard insists inclusion at the Tokyo 2020 Games will bring people to the sport.

“This is going to boost the sport’s visibility. The Games are a great showcase,” he told AFP.

Still, Fauchard doesn’t expect one big happy karate family.

He explained: “Sport karate will continue to develop in national federations while traditional karate will still be taught in schools. They’ll both benefit from the media attention brought by the Olympics and continue to exist side by side.”

Karate will still have to prove its credentials to retain an Olympic sport beyond 2020 however, the IOC will review whether its inclusion was a success.

Didier argues it’s clear why karate should remain in the games after 2020.

“Karate is relatively inexpensive, and athletes compete in the same arena as their judo and wrestling counterparts, and can be run over a few days.”

[GeneChing]

We're 4 years out and the news is already interesting.


Japanese politician pushing to double price of cigarettes in Japan by start of 2020 Olympics (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2016/10/27/japanese-politician-pushing-to-double-price-of-cigarettes-in-japan-by-start-of-2020-olympics/)
Casey Baseel 2 days ago

http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/st-1.png

Proposed tax hike aims to reduce the number of people lighting up before the Olympic flame comes to Tokyo.

Japan has a pretty intense mix of emotions about Tokyo serving as host of the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. On one hand, as a country that prides itself on hospitality and is always pleased to see people of other nations taking an interest in its traditions and accomplishments, many locals are excited about hosting the Games.

But on the other hand, the surge in visitors and attention from abroad that Japan will be experiencing has some worried about how certain social norms of the geographically, and at times socially, insular nation will be perceived by the international community. For example, Japanese smoking restrictions are much laxer than those in many similarly developed countries.

With Japanese public opinion also gradually becoming more critical of second-hand smoke, some legislators are arguing that now is as good a time as any to begin transitioning to stricter regulations and anti-smoking measures. The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare is contemplating an indoor smoking ban that would prohibit lighting up in restaurants and bars, and now Akiko Santo, a member of the House of Councilors and the head of its Second-hand Smoke Prevention Committee, is pushing for another dramatic change.

On October 25, Santo formally suggested to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga that the government look into the ramifications of significantly raising tobacco taxes, to the extent that a single pack of cigarettes would cost more than 1,000 yen (US$9.70). Should such a move be carried out, the retail price of an average pack would be more than double what it is now. While no official legislation has been introduced for debate, Santo seems determined to implement higher taxes on cigarettes by 2020, saying “The Olympics are coming up, and the timing is right.”

Source: Jiji
Top image ©RocketNews24

[GeneChing]

https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Images/OlympicOrg/News/2017/08/24/2017-08-24-karate-thumbnail.jpg
GETTY IMAGES
24 AUG 2017

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF KARATE (https://www.olympic.org/news/welcome-to-the-world-of-karate)

TWELVE MONTHS AFTER THE ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE INCLUDING KARATE IN THE PROGRAMME FOR THE TOKYO 2020 OLYMPIC GAMES, TOKEY HILL, THE 1980 KARATE WORLD CHAMPION AND CURRENT COACHING DIRECTOR AT THE USA KARATE FEDERATION, CAN BARELY BELIEVE HIS DREAM HAS COME TRUE.

“Just talking about it makes my skin tingle and the hairs go up at the back on my neck,” said Hill of karate’s debut at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. “Every day I wake up to train athletes, I think to myself, ‘it really happened’. It’s unbelievable. Every day it is a blessing to wake up and say, ‘we are actually going to be there’.

“I tell my doctor, ‘Doc do me a favour man, keep me alive for three more years’.”

https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Images/OlympicOrg/News/2017/08/24/2017-08-24-karate-inside-01.jpg
IOC

Getting to this point has, as Hill acknowledges, been “a struggle” with “plenty of ups and down”. Karate has been dancing around the fringes of the Olympic movement for several decades, coming particularly close to securing a spot at the London 2012 Games. “Karate does not know the expression ‘giving up’,” Hill said, with a laugh.

The close calls did give the sport an opportunity to not only ensure its presentation was as clear as possible, but to also spread the sport’s message a little further each time. “Karate shares principles and ideas which have a positive impact on the world,” Hill said. “It instils the character-building blocks of confidence, self-esteem, the ability to deal with peer pressure, avoid drug problems.”

IT INSTILS THE CHARACTER-BUILDING BLOCKS OF CONFIDENCE, SELF-ESTEEM, THE ABILITY TO DEAL WITH PEER PRESSURE
Tokey Hill

Proponents of the sport, and there are none bigger than Hill, are also adamant that the full body skills on show plus the clear use of hands and feet in scoring points make karate one of the most spectator-friendly of all the martial arts.

The decision to include kata, the demonstrative side of the sport in which each athlete must complete a series of pre-determined movements is, according to Hill, indicative of karate’s self-confidence and maturity.

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IOC

“It is a beautiful part of the sport that I think has been overlooked and the WKF (World Karate Federation) has brought it to the forefront,” Hill said. Ten male and 10 female athletes will compete in kata in Tokyo, alongside 60 competitors in kumite, the more widely-known, one-on-one full contact discipline.

“When you watch kata you see the full mind and body connection, the full ying and yang. You see all the principals of martial arts,” said Hill. “You want to say it is beauty, it is grace, but when you see these people move, the power, the speed, the sharp technique, it is unbelievable.”

The hosts of the 2020 Games currently boast a particularly rich stream of kata talent, with Ryo Kiyuna and Kiyou Shimizu reigning world champions. This represents just one aspect of the undeniable synchronicity of karate making its Olympic bow in Japan.

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IOC

“Our first world championships was in Tokyo in 1970. To come full circle, Japan not only gets a lot of the credit for the sport but they have done a lot of work revolutionising what we are doing, as far as bringing karate to the forefront,” Hill said.

Not that the Japanese are expected to exert a stranglehold on the medals in three years’ time. Hill has seen, at first-hand, the burgeoning talent worldwide.

“Karate has grown all over the world. From being on the technical committee of the Americas and the WKF I have had a lot of exposure. Karate is no longer in pockets,” the coach of a number of USA athletes hoping to make the team for Tokyo, said.

“Colombia, for instance, had three or four people in recent finals, Brazil have current (world) champions, the USA has Tom Scott, number one in the world at -75kg.”

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IOC

Add on the significantly increased national investment that will come from governments across the globe as a result of karate’s rise to Olympic status, and Hill is certain that the smaller nations will challenge the traditional powerhouses.

As the USA’s first karate world champion – he won gold in the -80kg category in Madrid, Spain – Hill does have some personal experience of this phenomenon. He is hoping he will soon get to experience it vicariously. Hill’s daughter, Ashley, was recently lured back to karate by the prospect of competing at the 2020 Olympic Games.

“She had a great acting career, she was out of karate for four years but now she has made a commitment to come back because of the Olympics,” Hill explained.

Ashley, a two-time world championship medal winner and multiple USA national champion, had swapped the mat for a successful TV and film career, including a role alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. Giving it all up to return to the rigour of full-time training was not easy, but indicated a passion for the sport of which her father is fiercely proud.

https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Images/OlympicOrg/News/2017/08/24/2017-08-24-karate-inside-05.jpg
IOC

“I’ll tell you how committed she is – she just got a job offer to shoot a segment for a movie, it was very lucrative for her and would have really helped her acting career, however she turned it down,” he said.

“I said to her it was her choice, ‘you figure out what you want to do but I can tell you this, you have to pick one or the other because you are not going to be able to commit 100% and that is what it is going to take to fulfil the criteria to make an Olympic team’.”

A spot on the USA Olympic team, let alone a medal in Tokyo, would, you suspect, be a dream fulfilled, not only for Ashley but also for her father. “The Olympics is the greatest event in the world as far as I am concerned,” Hill said.

I think I'm going to enjoy watching this.

[Jimbo]

Tokey Hill...now that's a name I haven't heard in a LOOONG time; not since he was a competitor back in the late '70s/early '80s.

Even though I feel that Olympics inclusion generally 'messes up' a MA, I strongly suspect that Olympic Karate will represent itself far, far better than Olympic TKD.

[GeneChing]

...because it's all about the original charm. :p


Aiming for tranquil transition (http://china.org.cn/sports/2017-08/31/content_41506228.htm)
China Daily, August 31, 2017

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A wushu athlete competes at the Chinese National Games in Tianjin.

An official of wushu's governing body in China said the sport's inclusion in the Olympics is key to boosting its global profile, but is not the nation's ultimate aim.

"Despite the failure of wushu, or Chinese martial arts, to be included in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the bidding efforts have significantly boosted the development of the sport around the globe," Zhang Yuping, deputy head of the Chinese Wushu Administrative Center of the State General Administration of Sport, said on Tuesday.

The number of member countries and regions in the International Wushu Federation has increased from 116 to 149 since 2008, and the sport has been included in many continental and multi-discipline events, she said.

Wushu has been an official competition event at the Asian Games and was a demonstration event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympics.

"The ever-increasing global profile of wushu is closely related with the efforts to bid for the sport's inclusion as an Olympic sport. And we will continue to push for the inclusion," said Zhang, a former national wushu champion.

Lai Xiaoxiao, a 24-year-old taking part in wushu at the 13th National Games in Tianjin, said adding wushu to the Olympics would help introduce it to more people.

"I think many people only know wushu as a form of performance, but do not understand the meaning behind the movements. More people will have the chance to see wushu if it is included in the Olympic Games," Lai said.

But that's not the primary aim of the sport's governing body, said Zhang.

"Our goal is to promote traditional Chinese culture to the world and give the world a sport from China," she said.

There are around 60 million practitioners of all ages in the country, according to Zhang.

In recent years, China has sent coaches to foreign countries and cooperated with the Confucius Institute worldwide to develop training courses for overseas practitioners, while the country's governing body for the sport has adopted standardized movements and scoring systems.

Zhang said the standardization of wushu, while being beneficial to its promotion, does not compromise its original charm.

"Wushu has retained its distinctive features in its transformation from traditional martial arts to a competitive sport," Zhang said.

"For instance, in the routine competition (performance of movements or weapon skills), every move has its distinctive meaning derived from attack or defense in real combat. This separates it from other sports like gymnastics," she said.

From transformation, wushu has evolved into taolu－routine performances of movements or weapon skills－and sanda, a combat sport combining punching, kicking and wrestling.

Lin Jianhua, a referee at the National Games, said it's time for wushu to become a Olympic sport because its increasingly sophisticated evaluation system has been accepted globally.

Lin said the rules used in domestic competitions have been gradually aligned with international standards in recent years, which paves way for the promotion of wushu in the world.

"Through the standardization, wushu is rendered in a more graceful and elevated manner," said Dong Guoxing, a wushu coach from Henan province.

"And the competition is staged in a more fair and open way."



2020 Olympics & China National Games (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70436-China-National-Games)

[GeneChing]

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/sp-sumo-a-20171005-870x515.jpg
Yokozuna Hakuho (left) and Kisenosato perform the rare sandan-gamae ritual at the Beyond 2020 Basho on Wednesday at Ryogoku Kokugikan. | KYODO
SUMO

Sumo pulls out all the stops at promotional event (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2017/10/04/sumo/sumo-pulls-stops-promotional-event/#.WeD__WhSyUk)
BY MAI YOSHIKAWA
KYODO
OCT 4, 2017

Rikishi in Japan are coming up big — literally and figuratively — doing little things to promote the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and, though not part of the Olympic program, the ancient national sport of sumo.

On Wednesday, 70 wrestlers of sumo’s top two divisions, including all four yokozuna, took part in the Ozumo Beyond 2020 Basho, a government-funded project aimed at both first-time spectators and hardcore fans. It was the second straight year for the event at Ryogoku Kokugikan

Wrestlers clad in colorful kimono stood outside the Tokyo venue and delighted the 4,000 fans by greeting them with handshakes, hugs, autograph signings and selfies.

The invitation-only event featured various services such as English public address announcements and subtitled live video streaming as well as wheelchair and guide dog accessibility. The unique experience took guests away from the present moment, allowing them to temporarily forget the injury concerns surrounding sumo’s top makuuchi division that have been giving the Japan Sumo Association a headache.

The dohyo ring was a stage where children in mawashi belts tackled wrestlers and lower-ranked wrestlers took turns singing lively sumo songs.

Last year, when the JSA organized the event for the first time, the sandan-gamae ceremony was performed by two yokozuna for the first time in 21 years. This year, Hakuho and Kisenosato were given the rare privilege of demonstrating the three-posture ritual.

After taking part in his first sandan-gamae, held only on special occasions, Mongolian yokozuna Hakuho said he enjoyed the kind of adrenaline rush he had never felt before.

“It was my first time (to perform the sandan-gamae) and I was nervous but it was a good experience,” said Hakuho, who was a last-minute entry. “The Olympics coming to Tokyo again is already a big deal, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time. I’m glad I was born the year I was. I hope to remain active until 2020,” said Hakuho, whose father won Mongolia’s first-ever Olympic medal as a freestyle wrestler in 1968 and also competed in the 1964 Tokyo Games.

Meanwhile, his counterpart Kisenosato said he remembers seeing the ritual in photographs years ago and was happy to officially become a part of that tradition.

“What an honor,” said Kisenosato.

“There were fans from all generations and it’s nice to share sumo tradition with them. Of course there’s the basho, but getting a chance to watch things like the sandan-gamae is different. I hope this gets more people interested in sumo.”

The one-day event was being held as a trial project by the government as the country makes every effort to attract more foreign visitors and make an economic success of the 2020 Games.

In addition to ringside seating for wheelchair users, live English play-by-play commentary and sign language interpretation were available to demonstrate how sports can break down barriers.

JSA public relations chief Kiyotaka Kasugano, who spoke on the raised ring before the national anthem was performed by a singer with autism, expressed his joy at seeing so many local foreign residents unite through sumo, and for the opportunity to share Japan’s culture and traditions with the world.

“Through sumo we believe we can promote this country’s other fine cultures and continue that trend onto the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics,” he said.

If only Sumo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?56343-Sumo) would become an Olympic (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics) event. I'd watch that.

[GeneChing]

New Olympic candidates: arm-wrestling, dodgeball, poker, kettlebell lifting, footgolf, foosball & pole dancing


Pole-dancing in the Olympics? International sports federation recognition helps pave the way. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/10/18/pole-dancing-in-the-olympics-international-sports-federation-recognition-helps-pave-the-way/?utm_term=.5b4622a1dca9)
By Marissa Payne October 18 at 4:15 PM

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2017-10-17/Getty/AFP_TH06D.jpg&w=1484
Pole-dancing is emerging as a sport — and a clean one in more ways than one. Their clothes stay on, and top-level participants must comply with World Anti-Doping Agency standards. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)

No strip club necessary. Pole-dancing now stands on its own as a provisionally recognized sport thanks to the Global Association of International Sports Federation, which granted the activity’s international governing federation “observer status” earlier this month.

“Pole Sports is a performance sport combining dance and acrobatics on a vertical pole,” GAISF writes on its website. “Pole Sports requires great physical and mental exertion, strength and endurance are required to lift, hold and spin the body. A high degree of flexibility is needed to contort, pose, demonstrate lines and execute techniques.”

Observer status is the first step international federations must achieve before becoming full GAISF members, which serves as a great boost for any sport hoping to one day land in the Olympics. And that is exactly pole-dancing’s goal, according to International Pole Sports Federation President Katie Coates, who lauded the day the decision was made on Oct. 2 as “historical.”

“The IPSF is very proud to have taken this positive step towards official recognition and the GAISF Observer Status will give our sport the opportunity to develop further, on the national and on the international stage,” she said in a statement. “In just eight years we have created a sport, ignited a global following and inspired a new generation of sportsmen, [sports]women and children. I am thankful to the IPSF and GAISF teams and excited about the future of our sport.”

The road to the Olympics isn’t short, however. Along with a recognized governing body, prospective sports must also gain separate recognition from the International Olympic Committee. Provisional IOC recognition lasts three years, during which committee members decide whether to give it full recognition. If successful, the sport’s governing body still needs to then petition to become an official Olympic sport, which can take several more years.

For Coates, however, those obstacles do not sound insurmountable, considering the uphill battle she said she faced while campaigning to gain provisional recognition from the GAISF.

“I feel like we have achieved the impossible,” she told the Telegraph this week. “Everyone told us that we would not be able to get pole-dancing recognized as a sport.”

Today, pole-dancing competitions are as family-friendly as any sporting event — and just as well regulated.

The IPSF outlines its rules, judging and other criteria in its 137-page document, that lays out guidelines for several categories of competition, ranging from youth to mixed doubles to para-competition. Pole dancers are even required to take doping tests to ensure the sport is clean.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdmuKEyJHpw

Watching a competition is akin to attending a dance recital of sorts, where the athletes, often dressed in sparkly two-piece outfits or leotards, perform choreographed routines set to music on two 20-foot poles on a spotlighted stage. One pole rotates while the other is static, which allows athletes to perform different types of tricks as outlined in the rule book.

The IPSF even began holding its own world championships in 2012. Russia’s Anna Chigarina is the current women’s champion.

“Pole-dancing is not like everyone thinks it is,” Coates said. “You need to actually watch it to understand.”

Six other international federations joined pole-dancing in gaining provisional recognition from the GAISF this month. They include some other eyebrow-raising activities, including arm-wrestling, dodgeball, poker and kettlebell lifting, as well as FootGolf, a sport that combines soccer and golf, and table soccer, which is better known as foosball.

“We warmly welcome our first Observers,” GAISF President Patrick Baumann said in a statement. “This is an exciting time for them and for us and we will do everything within our remit to help them realize their full potential as International Federations within the global sport’s family and, one day, maybe become part of the Olympic program.”

Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics) & Pole Dancing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68633-Chinese-Pole-Dancing)

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueSQZS6W4bo

[GeneChing]

https://scontent-lax3-2.cdninstagram.com/vp/55e5d58c3a00dbf1c8215d28d41f0f81/5B0F935D/t51.2885-15/e35/28155429_2048001385456431_6870202413639270400_n.jp g

tokyo2020
Verified
•
Follow (https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfuan0ThFqy/?utm_source=ig_embed)
It's official! Design Set A has been chosen as the #Tokyo2020 mascots!

東京2020大会マスコットが決定。これから一緒に大会を盛り上げていきます！

#Olympics #Paralympics #Mascot #2020Mascot #together #adorable #Tokyo #Japan #東京2020 #マスコット #2020マスコット
Like
Comment
8,888 likes
tokyo2020It's official! Design Set A has been chosen as the #Tokyo2020 mascots!

東京2020大会マスコットが決定。これから一緒に大会を盛り上げていきます！

#Olympics #Paralympics #Mascot #2020Mascot #together #adorable #Tokyo #Japan #東京2020 #マスコット #2020マスコット

I was hoping for something more 'Sailor Moon' ;)

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=63&v=VHkqD248MZ8

[GeneChing]

Olympic taekwondo coach Jean Lopez banned for sexual misconduct with a minor (https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2018/04/04/olympic-taekwondo-coach-jean-lopez-banned-sexual-misconduct-minor/485501002/)
Nancy Armour and Rachel Axon, USA TODAY Published 11:56 a.m. ET April 4, 2018 | Updated 9:04 p.m. ET April 4, 2018

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/46ec912424c678f26d4776f925b885766acd39f3/c=70-0-3382-2490&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/2018/04/04/USATODAY/USATODAY/636584387841824649-XXX-TAE-LOPEZ-MARK-EMB4594-21889137.JPG
Jean Lopez is the coach for his brother, Steven Lopez, who is taekwondo’s biggest star and the most decorated athlete in that sport. USA TODAY Sports
(Photo: Eileen Blass, USA TODAY Sports)

Jean Lopez, the older brother and longtime coach of two-time Olympic taekwondo champion Steven Lopez, has been declared permanently ineligible after the U.S. Center for SafeSport found him guilty of sexual misconduct and sexual misconduct involving a minor.

The decision reached Tuesday brings resolution to an investigation that began with USA Taekwondo three years ago and was turned over to SafeSport when it opened in March 2017. Three women who spoke with USA TODAY Sports have described sexual misconduct by Jean Lopez dating back to 1997, and one of those women filed a complaint with USA Taekwondo in 2006.

“This matter concerns a decades long pattern of sexual misconduct by an older athlete/coach abusing his power to groom, manipulate and, ultimately, sexually abuse younger female athletes,” SafeSport said in its decision obtained by USA TODAY Sports.

“Given the number of incidents reported over a span of several years and by multiple reporting parties, most of whom have no reasonable motive to fabricate an allegation – much less multiple, distinct incidents – of misconduct, the totality of the circumstances clearly shows a recurrent pattern of behavior on the part of Jean."

More: Lopez brothers, Olympic taekwondo royalty, hit with sex abuse allegations

More: USA Taekwondo athlete allowed in Rio Olympics training gym after ban for sexual misconduct

SafeSport published Lopez’s name in its database Wednesday morning, noting the decision is subject to appeal and not yet final.

Jean Lopez could not be reached for comment Wednesday. George Weissfisch, who served as Lopez’s advisor through the process, did not respond to an email from USA TODAY Sports.

USA TODAY Sports reported the allegations against Jean Lopez in June, as well as separate allegations of sexual misconduct against Steven Lopez. In an interview with USA TODAY Sports last spring, Steven Lopez denied the allegations.

Steven Lopez is taekwondo’s biggest star and the most decorated athlete in that sport. He is a five-time Olympian with gold medals in 2000 and 2004 and a bronze in 2008, as well as five world titles.

USA Taekwondo turned over its investigation of Steven Lopez to SafeSport last year, and the status of his case is unclear. Mandy Meloon, who accused the two-time Olympic champion of rape and physical abuse, said SafeSport investigator Kathleen Smith told her last month that SafeSport was still trying to arrange an interview with him.

But Wednesday night, Steven Lopez's name was added to the SafeSport database of disciplinary records as having been placed under an "interim measure-restriction" for sexual misconduct. The decision date is listed as June 19, 2017, and SafeSport describes this category as someone whose eligibility "has been restricted pending final resolution of the matter."

It's not clear what the restriction is referring to; Lopez participated in last year's world championships, which began June 24, as well as this year's U.S. Open and national team trials.

Lopez, 39, qualified for his 24th national team at trials in February, and he told the Houston Chronicle that he intends to keep competing through the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. He did not immediately return a phone call from USA TODAY Sports on Wednesday night seeking comment.

Steven Lopez has been coached throughout his career by Jean, who also coached siblings Mark and Diana Lopez to medals in Beijing in 2008. Jean Lopez, 44, coached the U.S. team in four Olympics.

USA TODAY Sports reported in June that Jean and Steven Lopez were allowed to participate in the 2016 Rio Olympics even though both had been accused of sexual assault and USA Taekwondo had been investigating them for more than a year. USA Taekwondo never held hearings that would have brought a resolution to the cases, but the attorney who conducted the investigation was concerned enough that he alerted the FBI.

“I am relieved and excited that he will no longer be able to coach young athletes or manipulate girls in these kinds of settings,” said Heidi Gilbert, who accused Jean Lopez of sexually assaulting her in 2003 while they were at a tournament in Germany. “I am highly disappointed in the process. It seems like they handled the situation different for the Lopezes vs. other coaches.

“It just took way too long,” she added. “But I am relieved. And very excited that no girl is ever going to have to deal with him again.”

USA Taekwondo had no immediate response, citing its policy of not commenting on active cases. Jean Lopez has until Tuesday to contest the decision through an arbitrator. He has denied all of the allegations, both in interviews with SafeSport and last spring with USA TODAY Sports.

“I’ve never been inappropriate with anyone,” Jean Lopez told USA TODAY Sports.

The decision makes Lopez permanently ineligible for membership to USA Taekwondo, which would prohibit Jean Lopez from coaching Steven or any other athlete on the U.S. team.

Last month, USA Taekwondo announced a collaboration to share information on misconduct issues involving members with Amateur Athletic Union.

Lopez has spoken at seminars or worked at camps in other countries, including Argentina and Chile. SafeSport’s decision would not bar him from coaching in other countries. That would require a ban by World Taekwondo, and its rules require national federations to report misconduct complaints.

“The reach of it’s always going to be limited,” said Jon Little, an attorney who sued USA Taekwondo on several occasions and who now represents five women who said they were sexually assaulted by the Lopez brothers.

“He’s always going to be able to go to Argentina or do something. …They can’t totally stop him from coaching.”

Jean Lopez has been coaching at a gym in Las Vegas, which touts his Olympic credentials.

On its website, Legacy Taekwondo says it is the “only taekwondo training center in Las Vegas who can boast instructors that have won and coached Olympic, World and National gold medalist on behalf of the United States of America.”

The SafeSport decision comes more than a decade after Meloon first told USA Taekwondo in 2006 that Jean Lopez had sexually assaulted her at a tournament in 1997. She was 16 at the time.

While USA Taekwondo dismissed her claim at the time, SafeSport’s investigation found it to have merit.

“It’s not only myself personally, everything in the news, the #metoo,” Meloon said. “It wasn’t the right time. It was just so accepted. It was just the way things were, and now it’s just different.”

SafeSport’s investigation also found Jean Lopez had assaulted Gilbert and a third woman, with whom he had also engaged in a consensual sexual relationship with her starting when she was 17.

“This is probably one of the worst SafeSport cases I’ve ever seen,” Little said.

“Literally it went on for two decades. I guess if you’re asking me is there a difference between now and then, the answer is barely. I’m encouraged that the USOC took action against such a prominent person. However, look what it took. It took multiple newspaper stories over multiple years. It took multiple proceedings at the USOC and in other venues. It took police reports to various agencies. It took a lot for a long time for this to end. And the bottom line is that nothing should take this long.”

The Olympic movement is under heavy criticism for its handling of sexual abuse cases following revelations that longtime USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar abused hundreds of women, including Olympic champions Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Wieber and Gabby Douglas. USA Taekwondo, USA Swimming, US Speedskating and USA Judo also have been criticized for how they’ve handled high-profile or wide-spread allegations of abuse.

In January, the bipartisan House Energy and Commerce Committee asked the U.S. Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, USA Taekwondo, USA Swimming and Michigan State to provide information on how they have handled complaints. It has since expanded its inquiry to include all national governing bodies and is awaiting responses.

The USOC has long maintained it does not have the authority or resources to investigate abuse complaints. Instead, it created the U.S. Center for SafeSport, which is charged with adjudicating all sexual abuse complaints in the Olympic movement.

When SafeSport opened in March 2017, national governing bodies were told to turn over any pending sexual abuse cases. The complaints against Jean Lopez and his brother were given to the center immediately.

Threads:
Busted Martial Artists (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48947-Busted-Martial-Artists)
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Tae Kwon Do

[GeneChing]

More on Jean Lopez here (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42906-Tae-Kwon-Do&p=1308176#post1308176).



Taekwondo star Jean Lopez reinstated after ban from sport amid sexual misconduct allegations (https://www.click2houston.com/news/taekwondo-coach-from-sugar-land-accused-of-sexual-misconduct-reinstated-after-ban-from-sport)
By Click2Houston.com Staff
Posted: 10:45 PM, August 18, 2018
Updated: 10:45 PM, August 18, 2018

https://bobcat.grahamdigital.com/image/upload/view?width=1280&height=720&method=crop&url=https://media.click2houston.com/photo/2018/04/04/jean%20lopez%20getty_1522871899702.jpg_11882010_ve r1.0_640_360.jpg
Getty Images

HOUSTON - Noted taekwondo coach Jean Lopez, from Sugar Land, who has been accused of sexual misconduct, has been reinstated after being blocked from the sport earlier this year.

Lopez's attorney confirmed to KPRC 2 that the sanctions have been lifted by Safesport and he is eligible to coach again. Lopez was banned amid sexual misconduct charges that were filed this year.

The charges stem from an investigation that began three years ago.

Threads:
Busted Martial Artists (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48947-Busted-Martial-Artists)
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Tae Kwon Do (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42906-Tae-Kwon-Do)

[GeneChing]

Now it's about Safe Sport.


Safe Sport added to lawsuit alleging USOC cover up of sexual abuse of taekwondo athletes by Lopez brothers (https://www.ocregister.com/2018/08/24/safe-sport-added-to-lawsuit-alleging-usoc-cover-up-of-sexual-abuse-of-taekwondo-athletes-by-lopez-brothers/)
Organizations accused of sex trafficking and forced labor by former Team USA athletes

https://www.ocregister.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LDN-L-SAFESPORT-LOPEZ-0825-1.jpg?w=1018
Steven Lopez, an Olympic gold medalist in Tae Kwon Do is introduced as honorary captain before an NFL football game Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, in Houston. (AP Photo/George Bridges)

By SCOTT M. REID | sreid@scng.com | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: August 24, 2018 at 4:40 pm | UPDATED: August 24, 2018 at 4:55 pm

The U.S. Center for Safe Sport has been added to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Denver Friday that alleges gross negligence and trafficking by Safe Sport and the U.S. Olympic Committee for failing to protect female taekwondo athletes from sexual abuse by Olympic gold medalist Steven Lopez and his brother Jean, a longtime U.S. national team coach.

Kay Poe, a 2000 Olympian, on Friday joined other former and current Team USA athletes in a lawsuit that charges that the USOC, Safe Sport and USA Taekwondo, the sport’s national governing body, engaged in forced labor, sex trafficking and racketeering under federal RICO statutes by secretly obstructing investigations in allegations of sexual abuse by the Lopez brothers.

Specifically the lawsuit alleges that investigations into sexual abuse allegations against the Lopez brothers were suspended to allow the brothers to coach and compete in the 2016 Olympic Games and 2017 U.S. Championships.

The suit also alleges that Safe Sport’s claims of being independent are false and that the center is compromised by conflicts of interest. The center, which opened in March 2017, was created by and is financed by the USOC.

“This case will conclusively demonstrate that Safe Sport is a sham,” said Robert Allard, an attorney for Poe. “We have seen case after case highlighted by the recent decision to reinstate alleged serial predator JeanLopez where SafeSport bends over backward to protect pedophile coaches and, as a consequence, the financial interests of the USOC and its (national governing bodies).”

Friday’s amended complaint comes a week after Safe Sport removed Jean Lopez from its list of permanently ineligible individuals and given “interim restriction” status. It is unclear why Safe Sport made the change or what the conditions of the restriction are.

Jean Lopez was originally banned by Safe Sport in April for sexual misconduct and sexual misconduct involving a minor. Steven Lopez, a gold medalist at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games, was placed on “interim suspension” on May 7 by Safe Sport for “allegations of misconduct.”

The Lopez brothers have denied any wrongdoing.

The suit, initially filed this past spring, alleges that the USOC, Safe Sport and USA Taekwondo “obstructed, attempted to obstruct, interfered, and or prevented the enforcement” of their policies by ignoring verbal and written complaints of sexual abuse, dismissing complaints of and refusing to act on reports of sexual abuse and delaying the investigation of reports of sexual abuse. The suit also alleges the organizations advised athletes to withdraw complaints of sexual abuse that they knew were truthful, offered to put athletes back on team rosters only if they withdrew truthful complaints of sexual abuse, and threatened athletes with consequences for failure to withdraw complaints.

Poe in 1996 at the age of 14 became the youngest ever member of the U.S. national taekwondo team. She alleges Jean Lopez began sexually exploiting her and engaging in sexual intercourse with her in the year leading up to the 2000 Olympics. The suit said Lopez forced Poe into sex at the 1999 World Championships in Alberta. Lopez’s abuse of Poe was known to many in the USOC and USA Taekwondo community, the suit alleges.

Mandy Meloon alleges Jean Lopez molested her while to she pretended to sleep on a trip to a 1997 World Cup event in Cairo, Egypt. Meloon was 15 at the time. Meloon began a sexual relationship with Steven Lopez in 2000, according to court documents. She alleges in the filing that Steven Lopez physically abused her in 2002 and raped her in 2004.

Heidi Gilbert alleges Jean Lopez drugged, molested and performed oral sex on her while they traveled to a 2003 World Cup event in Germany. Later, Gilbert alleges, Jean Lopez told her he wanted to leave his wife and have “Olympic babies” with her.

Gabriella Joslin alleges Steven Lopez sexually assaulted her during the 2006 German Open.



Threads:
Busted Martial Artists (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48947-Busted-Martial-Artists)
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Tae Kwon Do (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42906-Tae-Kwon-Do)

[GeneChing]

I cannot wait until mecha fights become an Olympic event.


Japan to release Gundam and Char’s Zaku into space to orbit Earth, ahead of Tokyo 2020 Olympics (https://soranews24.com/2019/05/17/japan-to-release-gundam-and-chars-zaku-into-space-to-orbit-earth-ahead-of-tokyo-2020-olympics/)
Dale Roll 57 minutes ago

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/g-satellite1.jpg?w=640&h=360

Launch will celebrate the anime’s anniversary and look forward to the 2020 Olympics!

Mobile Suit Gundam, the anime that defined the mecha genre, is celebrating its 40 year anniversary, and that’s cause to celebrate. But as if the release of limited-edition Gundam coffee cans, the opening of a brand new Gundam Cafe, and plans for an actual moving Gundam statue weren’t enough, now there are also plans to actually send some mobile suits into space.

That’s right, you read that correctly. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has teamed up with the Tokyo University Graduate School of Engineering’s Aerospace Engineering department to use mobile suits to cheer on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics from space. To do so, they’ll be sending models of the original Gundam and Char’s Zaku from the Mobile Suit Gundam series out into Earth’s orbit.

▼ The suits will even be traveling around the Earth at a rate of about eight kilometers (five miles) per second, which means they’ll complete one orbit in about 90 minutes!
https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/g-satellite4.png?w=640&h=431

Sadly, they won’t be full-size Gundam statues, like the one in Odaiba. The logistics of launching a 20-meter tall (60-plus foot), extremely heavy statue into space would probably be too difficult with the technology we have right now. Instead, they’ll be sending out two Gunpla models, like the build-it-yourself kind that fans can buy and make at home, but they won’t be ordinary plastic Gunpla models, of course; thanks to the cooperation of three companies in Fukui Prefecture, as well as JAXA and Tokyo University, they’ll be made with special materials and painted with a special kind of paint in order to withstand the harsh environment of space.

They’ll be launched from the International Space Station sometime in March or April next year, together with the new G-Satellite, a micro satellite which measures just 30 centimeters across (about 11 inches), and which is also an electronic billboard. The models will be housed in the “cockpit” of the G-Satellite until it enters Earth’s orbit, and then it will open, and they’ll look as if they’re floating in outer space.

▼ An image of the G-Satellite
https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/g-satellite2.png?w=640&h=431

The mobile suits will be standing on the electronic signboard, on which encouraging messages for the athletes will be displayed in the five colors of the Olympics. The G-Satellite will also be equipped with seven cameras to capture the messages, which those involved with the project will share on social media.

Unfortunately the mobile suits won’t be allowed to revolve around the earth for eternity, as they’ll be taken back in sometime during the Olympics. Still, thanks to cool experiments like this, maybe one day we will be able to send a Gundam into space to orbit the earth perpetually, and a full-sized one at that! Now wouldn’t that be something for extraterrestrial visitors to see?

In any case, we’ll be looking forward to the pictures posted on social media next year!

Source: One Team Project via Japaaan Magazine
Images: One Team Project

THREADS:
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Which Colossal Death Robot are you? (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?18982-Which-Colossal-Death-Robot-are-you)

[GeneChing]

https://nbcolympictalk.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/03_medal-front.3-e1563963992753.jpg?w=768&h=432&crop=1

Tokyo 2020 Olympic medals unveiled with help of 6 million recycled phones (https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/07/24/tokyo-olympic-medals-unveiled/?fbclid=IwAR1KCXjgfYEWoYwSDC188MPlkwgoTMVe8nzdlBRb pgnWQ3XV7sBYycyn-4Q)
By OlympicTalk Jul 24, 2019, 6:27 AM EDT

The Tokyo Olympic medals, created in part with metals from six millions recycled cell phones and other small electronics, were unveiled on Wednesday, one year out from the Opening Ceremony.

More than 78,000 tons of used cell phones and other devices were collected to help yield more than 12,000 pounds of gold, silver and bronze.

Each medal weighs between one pound (bronze) and 1.2 pounds (gold), to be distributed at the largest Games ever with records of 33 sports and 339 events.

The medal design was chosen from an open competition that attracted more than 400 entries.

From Tokyo 2020:

The medals resemble rough stones that have been polished and which now shine, with “light” and “brilliance” their overall themes. The medals collect and reflect myriad patterns of light, symbolizing the energy of the athletes and those who support them; their design is intended to symbolise diversity and represent a world where people who compete in sports and work hard are honored. The brilliance of the medals’ reflections signifies the warm glow of friendship depicted by people all over the world holding hands.

https://nbcolympictalk.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/01_medal-front.1.jpg?w=768&h=1152



Tiger Claw (https://www.tigerclaw.com/home.php) makes custom medals. Just so you know... ;)

[GeneChing]

WORLD NEWS AUGUST 7, 2019 / 5:33 PM / UPDATED 11 HOURS AGO
Judo helps Japan get to grips with China's expansion in Pacific (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pacific-samoa-judo/judo-helps-japan-get-to-grips-with-chinas-expansion-in-pacific-idUSKCN1UY01N)
Jonathan Barrett
4 MIN READ

APIA, Samoa (Reuters) - In a large church hall near the Samoan parliament, 175-kg (386-lb) judo practitioner Derek Sua is being thrown to the mat by his Japanese coach, a black-belt who is just a third his size.

Sua welcomes the training, usually difficult for athletes in Pacific Ocean islands to secure, but now offered free by Japan’s development assistance agency, to help him qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

“It’s not easy, because here in the Pacific for us, especially Pacific islanders, we have limited competition,” Sua said. “Because we need to find funding to travel overseas and compete.”

Sua added that he would train in Japan in August with several other Samoans, following an invitation he described as fostering goodwill between the two nations.

But the offer is also part of a wider diplomatic effort in the Pacific by the United States and its allies, including Japan, to counter the growing influence of China, which has ramped up its sports programs in the region.

Sometimes called “soft” or “cultural” diplomacy, such programs can extend beyond sports to language exchanges and the arts, with the aim of advancing foreign policy goals.

https://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20190808&t=2&i=1416619185&w=1200&r=LYNXNPEF77011
FILE PHOTO: Samoan judoka Derek Sua attends a practice session with his Japanese coach Kohei Kamibayashi at a training facility inside a church hall in Apia, Samoa, July 13, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Barrett

Although tiny, the Pacific islands control vast swaths of resource-rich ocean and strategic infrastructure, such as airstrips and ports, provoking interest from China and a counter response from the United States.

Last week, Samoan sports minister Loau Keneti Sio said China had extended an invitation to train a “large contingent” of young athletes in sports, from athletics to badminton and volleyball, later this year.

China had already hosted Samoan athletes ahead of the Olympic-styled Pacific Games, held in Samoa in July, while training chefs and performers for the opening and closing ceremonies, he added.

China has soft power initiatives elsewhere in the Pacific, which include exposing regional table tennis players to the country’s world-class coaches and training regimes.

The judo diplomacy complements similar initiatives from regional allies Australia and New Zealand, which actively use rugby union and league to forge strong ties with Pacific islands, where the football codes are dominant.

Originating in Japan, judo makes use of grip fighting and throws that have proved to be effective techniques for mixed martial art competitions.

On the mats in Samoa, Sua’s coach, Kohei Kamibayashi, said judo was a sport whose most powerful practitioners did not always win the battle.

The Japanese coach said his star Samoan pupil, who competed at the last Olympics in Brazil, must prepare to face bigger opponents in his 100-kg (221-lb) -plus category, where there are no weight limits.

Kamibayashi said he was helping Sua perfect his use of a technique called “seoi-nage”, effective for throwing bigger opponents.

While Samoans were naturally built for a sport like judo, it was a very demanding martial art that was still struggling to win converts on the island, Sua added.

“It can be another dominant sport here in Samoa if a lot of people get interested,” he said.

Reporting by Jonathan Barrett in APIA, Samoa; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

THREADS
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Judo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42938-Judo)
Soft Power (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?39376-Soft-power)

[GeneChing]

Karate at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics: Everything you need to know (https://www.cnet.com/news/karate-at-the-2020-tokyo-olympics-everything-you-need-to-know/)
A new fan's guide to watching this ancient martial art.

BY DANIELLE KOSECKI
AUGUST 10, 2019 6:00 AM PDT

https://cnet3.cbsistatic.com/img/11hFZxV_PV-dEArGJQcyWeJjw0s=/756x567/2019/08/07/5feebd5e-5363-41fb-bc1b-da29adaa9595/karate.png
Karate's two modalities -- kata and kumite -- make their Olympic debut in 2020.
Canva

Karate, a system of unarmed combat that literally means "empty hand," is said to have developed during the 17th century in the Okinawa prefecture, a chain of islands off the southern coast of Japan. Despite being popularized worldwide as a sport after World War II, karate -- along with four other sports -- will be part of the Summer Olympics for the first time in 2020. Fittingly, it makes its Olympic debut in Japan, where the sport, which involves executing arm- and leg-based strikes, first originated.

It joins judo, taekwondo, and wrestling as the only Olympics-approved martial arts -- for 2020 anyway: Karate failed to make the cut for the Paris Olympics in 2024.

With that in mind, here's everything you need to know to enjoy karate during the Tokyo Olympics next summer.

Karate Events at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics

In Tokyo, Karate practitioners, or karatekas, will compete at Nippon Budokan, an indoor legacy venue built to host judo events at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Since then, Nippon Budokan, which is located in Kitanomaru Park in the center of Tokyo, has hosted various sports and music acts -- including the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Diana Ross -- but it's best known as the home of Japanese martial arts. It was the site of the first Karate World Championships in 1970 and to this day still hosts the national championships for judo, kendo, aikido and more.

At the 2020 Olympics, both the men and the women will compete in two karate events at Nippon Budokan: kata, a solo form discipline, and kumite, a sparring discipline.

https://cnet1.cbsistatic.com/img/q6gpR0YjwdPY1jJeTia7iwTiMq4=/1092x0/2019/08/07/2c21e5e6-a2a6-4d06-9742-19de8f1c181c/gettyimages-477075984.jpg
Karate Day 2: Baku 2015 - 1st European Games
Minh Dack of France competes in the Men's Karate Kata elimination round during the Baku 2015 European Games.
Michael Steele

In the Olympics, there will be one kata event -- and one gold medal -- each for men and women. During the competition, karatekas will perform a series of offensive and defensive movements, known as forms, against a virtual opponent. There are 102 kata approved by the World Karate Federation (WKF) that the athletes can choose from, such as Heian Shodan and Nijushiho.

Unlike in traditional competitions, which are scored using a flag system, Olympic judges will use a point system to evaluate the athletes' technical performance, taking things like techniques, timing and breathing into consideration, as well as their athletic performance -- i.e. strength, speed and balance.

According to this new scoring system, an individual's two highest and lowest scores will be thrown out, with the three remaining added together to represent their final score. After a ranking round, top performers will either progress to either the bronze medal or final bout.

Check out the full schedule of the 2020 Olympic Karate events. (https://tokyo2020.org/en/games/schedule/olympic/)

https://cnet2.cbsistatic.com/img/MG9vT7ppigZZnkq69593KQOxIzI=/1092x0/2019/08/07/9164e7a1-bac4-4a14-ade9-30a058a29da5/gettyimages-1056419312.jpg
Karate - Buenos Aires Youth Olympics: Day 12
Annika Saelid of Norway (red) and Negin Altooni of Iran (blue) compete in the Women's Kumite +59kg Semifinal during the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games 2018.
Marcelo Endelli / Getty Images

The WKF recognizes five weight classes in competition. But in the Olympics, men's and women's kumite will be consolidated into three weight classes. For men those classes are up to 67 kilograms, up to 75kg, and over 75kg, and for women it's and up to 55 kg, up to 61kg and over 61kg.

Within each weight class, pairs of karateka will compete against each other in an 8-by-8-meter area for up to three minutes. Points are awarded when an athlete lands a properly executed strike, kick or punch on various parts of their opponent's body, such as their head, neck, belly or back.

The first karateka to score eight points more than their competitor, or the karateka with the most points at the end of the match is the winner. In the event of a tie, judges determine the winner.

Competitors in each weight class will have to progress through three rounds -- an elimination round, the semi-final, and the final -- in pursuit of a gold medal.

How Karateka qualify for the Olympics
The WKF has more than 190 members but only 80 competitors will qualify the compete in Tokyo: 10 in each kumite weight class for both the men and the women and 10 men and 10 women in kata.

There are a few different ways to earn a spot on that list. The first is through qualification.

Thirty-two athletes (16 men and 16 women) will qualify based on their world ranking as of April 6, 2020. Twelve more men and 12 more women will qualify based on their results at a tournament in Paris, France from May 8 to 10, 2020. And 12 athletes will qualify at two continental events: the European Games which will be held June 14 to 30, 2019 in Minsk, Belarus and the Pan-American Games July 26 to Aug. 11, 2019 in Lima, Peru (details here).

The second pathway to the Olympics is open to citizens of the host country -- Japan is allowed to appoint eight athletes (four men and four women) to their Olympic team. If any of those athletes qualify via their world ranking or a tournament, those spots will be reallocated to other athletes.

The four final Olympic slots will be chosen by the Tripartite Commission, which is made up of the National Olympic Committees, the International Olympic Committee and the International Federations.

On Oct. 14, 2019 the International Olympic Committee will invite all eligible National Olympic Committees to submit their requests for Tripartite Commission Invitation Places by Jan. 15, 2020, according to the rules. The allocation of the last four spots will be confirmed after the end of the qualification period for karate, which has yet to be determined.

By June 2, 2020, the WKF will publish a list of the qualified athletes on the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 section of its website. The National Olympic Committees will then have two weeks to confirm if they wish to send those athletes to the Games.

THREADS
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

Can the “Beijing Bikini” help Tokyo bear the boiling heat during next year’s Games? (https://soranews24.com/2019/08/12/can-the-beijing-bikini-help-tokyo-bear-the-boiling-heat-during-next-years-games/)
Master Blaster 2 days ago

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/img_7216.jpg?w=640&h=480

Some Chinese authorities want to put a stop to it, but might Japanese authorities be wise to encourage letting our guts fly free?

A long-standing hot-weather technique among older guys in China has been to roll up their shirts to just under their chests creating the illusion of wearing something like a bra. Dubbed, the “Beijing Bikini” it has recently come under fire by local governments who are calling for a ban on the practice.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F-MFjoKgA0

Our writer Meg, who often travels to China, first encountered the Beijing Bikini back in the 2000s while visiting Shanghai. Her companion was startled by a group of men wearing what, from a distance, appeared to be sports bras.

▼ Friend: “Oh my god! Meg! Old guys in a sports bras! There’s a whole bunch of them! Are they some kind of perverts?!”

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/beijing2.jpg?w=640&h=485

As they got closer Meg saw one of the men turn to face them. It was clear now that his “sports bra” was nothing more than his tank top rolled up to his nipples. But he held an air of satisfaction and relaxation seldom seen, and he causally flashed a smile as pure and genuine as a newborn babe.

This was a man who had achieved ultimate comfort.

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/beijing.jpg?w=640&h=469

While it had the unfortunate side effect of driving her friend into a panic, the Beijing Bikini was clearly an effective way at countering unforgivably hot weather.

Flash-forward to Tokyo 2019. The government has been racking its collective brain to find ways to combat its uncomfortable and deadly summer heat in time for the 2020 Olympics. Could the Beijing Bikini be the cost-effective key to accomplishing this?

Beijing did have a highly successful summer Olympics in 2008… this was beginning to make all kinds of crazy sense, so Meg assembled a team of writers to hike up their tops and hit the streets to test the Beijing Bikini’s effectiveness in Japan.

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/img_7175.jpg?w=640&h=480

Each representing different stomach intensities and styles of tops, P.K. Sanjun, Go Hattori, and Yuichiro Wasai stepped into the steamy Tokyo jungle with their new heat-prevention fashions.

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/img_7207.jpg?w=640&h=480

They kept their heads up high and seemed to have an air of confidence, but they lacked that pure feeling of comfort that Meg had once seen in Shanghai so many years before. Something was amiss.

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/img_7203.jpg?w=640&h=480

After returning to the office, both Go and P.K. reported a significant cooling feeling in their midriffs. Yuichiro, however, said his belly was only somewhat cooler.

Here’s each man’s feeling on the Beijing Bikini:

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/img_7181.jpg?w=640&h=480

Go Hattori: “My midsection was cooler, but I felt really insecure that it would affect my weak stomach. The cool feeling was only in my stomach. Anyway, it doesn’t look cool so it’s not for me personally.”

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/img_7189.jpg?w=640&h=480

P.K. Sanjun: “There certainly is a cool feeling in my gut… but even when I’m in good shape and have abs, I still feel bad about showing people my middle-aged belly. But if everyone’s doing it over in Beijing, why not take advantage and do it there too?”

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/img_7193.jpg?w=640&h=480

Yuichiro Wasai: “If you’re going to do this, why not just take your shirt off? The Beijing Bikini is hiding only the chest, as if that’s some special line of decency. It definitely got a little cooler, but it’s a half-baked way to preserve manners. On the other hand, just whipping off your shirt sends a clear message that you throw caution to the wind with regard to etiquette. It’s also a better way to be in terms of keeping cool, so I would just take my shirt off. I mean, if it were down to either that or a Beijing Bikini.”

So, the Beijing Bikini does appear to have some hurdles to overcome before it’s embraced by people in Japan. There is still time before the Olympics for it to catch on, though and it’s still considerably better than those umbrella hats.

Images: ©SoraNews24

THREAD
Beijing Bikinis on the belly breathing thread (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?15673-belly-breathing&p=1314766#post1314766)
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

Is this really a thing?


Stop World Taekwondo from using new dobok in Tokyo 2020 (https://www.petitions.net/stop_world_taekwondo_from_using_the_new_dobok_in_t okyo_2020?s=63764724&fbclid=IwAR0e4bE0bxpHDAgMjFbpt-t3X8w3HV4nfLfjII02327PS3D0JCsRfimCGp)

Petition
Signatures 1 314

We, the participants of taekwondo, around the world, OBJECT to the use of this dobok and respectfully petition World Taekwondo to preserve the integrity and tradition of our martial art and NOT USE this dobok in the Olympic Games.

https://www.petitions.net/uploads/images/dobok_cropped.png

Get your old skool Doboks here (https://www.martialartsmart.com/tae-kwon-do-uniforms.html).

THREADS
TKD (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42906-Tae-Kwon-Do)
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vApvRSHtu-s

THREADS
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)

[GeneChing]

...but such is part of the intrinsic drama of international games...:mad:


NINE MONTHS BEFORE TOKYO OLYMPICS
Iran barred indefinitely from world judo over refusal to face Israelis (https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-indefinitely-barred-from-world-judo-over-refusal-to-face-israelis/?fbclid=IwAR12d9lDqg2uzCFuZEk92zHE6SYjQ0CLaFvoJtju x77MxYKnpjaWkLDqOTA)
Official suspension handed down by International Judo Federation comes after Iranian judoka said he was ordered to throw match to avoid facing Israeli competitor
By AFP and TOI STAFF
22 October 2019, 7:14 pm 3

https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2019/09/000_1JT7OE-e1567329445527-640x400.jpg
Iran's judoka Saeid Mollaei reacts after losing to Belgium's Matthias Casse in the semifinal fight in the men's under-81 kilogram category during the 2019 Judo World Championships in Tokyo on August 28, 2019. (Charly Triballeau/AFP)

The International Judo Federation (IJF) said Tuesday it had banned Iran from competition indefinitely over the country’s refusal to face Israeli competitors.
The federation issued a provisional ban last month while investigating a report that Iran had ordered a judoka to lose deliberately at the world championships to avoid facing Israeli competitor Sagi Muki in the subsequent round.

“Following the events, which occurred during the last World Judo Championships Tokyo 2019, the final suspension of the Iran Judo Federation from all competitions… has been pronounced,” the IJF said in a statement.

The IJF said the suspension will remain in place until the Iran Judo Federation “gives strong guarantees and proves that they will respect the IJF Statutes and accept that their athletes fight against Israeli athletes.”

Iranian fighter Saeid Mollaei, defending his title at the Tokyo World Championships in August, had said he was ordered to throw his semifinal rather than risk facing an Israeli in the final of the under 81kg class.

The Iranian, 27, lost the semifinal and then went on to lose his third-place fight.

https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2019/09/AP19257259319779-e1568637248811-640x400.jpg
In this photo taken Sept. 12, 2019, Iranian judoka Saeid Mollaei poses for a portrait photo at an undisclosed southern city of Germany. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Mollaei said he had been instructed to withdraw from the competition by the presidents of the Iran Judo Federation and the Iran Olympic committee.

Rejecting the charges, the Iranian federation denied that pressure had been applied to force Mollaei to withdraw from the championships.

However the IJF disciplinary commission examining the case found that Iran’s actions “constitute a serious breach and gross violation of the Statutes of the IJF, its legitimate interests, its principles and objectives.”

Judo is one of Iran’s sporting strong points and the ban comes as a blow just nine months ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

Tehran is expected to appeal against the IJF decision at the Swiss-based Court for Arbitration of Sport. They have 21 days to do so.

Meanwhile, Culture Minister Miri Regev lauded the IJF’s ban, but said in a statement that she regretted “the heavy price Iranian athletes will have to pay because of their regime’s decisions.”

The IJF said Mollaei had been pressured to lose by Iranian deputy sports minister Davar Zani. Mollaei was also reportedly pressured to bow out by Iranian Olympic Committee president Reza Salehi Amiri, who told him minutes before his semifinal match that Iranian security services were at his parents’ house in Tehran.

https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2019/09/000_1JT7OE-1-640x400.jpg
Belgium’s Matthias Casse (in blue) celebrates winning the semifinal fight against Iran’s Saeid Mollaei in the men’s under-81 kilogram category during the 2019 Judo World Championships in Tokyo on August 28, 2019. (Charly Triballeau/AFP)

The IJF said an official from the Iranian embassy in Tokyo pretending to be a coach gained access to a restricted area to coerce the 27-year-old Tehran native to lose the match as he warmed up on the sidelines.

Mollaei fled to Berlin after the championships, where he was hoping to secure a place at the 2020 Olympic games.

Iran does not recognize Israel as a country, and Iranian sports teams have for several decades had a policy of not competing against Israelis. Iranian passports remind holders in bold red they are “not entitled to travel to occupied Palestine.”

One of the most famous cases was that of Arash Miresmaeili, a two-time judo world champion who showed up overweight for his bout against an Israeli at the Olympics in Athens in 2004 and was disqualified.

He was praised by Iran’s then-president Mohammad Khatami and the ultraconservative media and eventually made his way to become the current chief of Iran’s judo federation’s chief.

Miresmaeili told Iranian media at the time he would refuse to fight an Israeli as a gesture of support for Palestine.

According to him, the current ban on the federation is “outside the usual procedure” as the disciplinary committee reviewing the case should have temporarily suspended Iran until reviews were complete and Iran had time to present its defense.

https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2019/09/AP_19240467881047-640x400.jpg
Sagi Muki of Israel, top, competes against Matthias Casse of Belgium during a men’s under-81 kilogram final of the World Judo Championships in Tokyo, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

THREADS
Judo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42938-Judo)
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

https://nbcolympictalk.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/ap_17297349898518-e1573484917291.jpg?w=768&h=432&crop=1
Getty Images

Japan Olympic legends to start Tokyo 2020 torch relay in Greece (https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/11/11/tokyo-olympic-torch-relay/)
By OlympicTalkNov 11, 2019, 10:06 AM EST

Japanese Olympic gold medalists Mizuki Noguchi (marathon), Tadahiro Nomura (judo) and Saori Yoshida (wrestling) will be among the torchbearers for the Tokyo 2020 torch relay’s first eight days in Greece in March.

Noguchi will reportedly be the first Japanese torchbearer and second overall, receiving the Olympic Flame from a Greek during the traditional lighting ceremony in Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, on March 12. Japanese media reported Noguchi will have that honor, though Tokyo 2020 has not confirmed it.

The Olympic Flame will spend eight days in Greece before being flown to Japan to start a 121-day trek leading to the July 24 Opening Ceremony. The Japanese part of the relay begins in the tsunami-affected prefecture of Fukushima.

Noguchi won the 2004 Athens Olympic marathon that began in Marathon and ended at the Panathenaic Stadium used for the first modern Olympics in 1896.

Nomura is the only judoka with three Olympic gold medals, winning the lightest male division (60kg or 132 pounds) in 1996, 2000 and 2004.

The wrestler Yoshida is also a three-time Olympic champion, plus a 13-time world champion between 53kg and 55kg. She retired after being dethroned by American Helen Maroulis in a bid for a fourth gold in Rio.

Others to be the first host-nation athletes to carry the Olympic Flame in Olympia included South Korean soccer player Park Ji-sung, Brazilian volleyball player Giovane Gavio and Russian hockey player Alex Ovechkin.

Pass that torch!

[GeneChing]

cheaters...:rolleyes:


Russia banned from all global sport including 2020 OIympics and 2022 World Cup finals (https://news.sky.com/story/russia-banned-from-all-global-sport-including-2020-oiympics-and-2022-world-cup-11882206?fbclid=IwAR0NHCl3P-lv8CAvhCtjsDNQ0M2Ic-JZjXQowQpvWf4jtfLM3BP9nZ147v0)
The country planted fake evidence and deleted files linked to positive doping tests that could have helped identify drug cheats
Tom Gillespie, news reporter
@TomGillespie1
Monday 9 December 2019 15:13, UK

https://e3.365dm.com/19/12/1600x900/skynews-vladimir-putin-russia_4861307.jpg?bypass-service-worker&20191209103301
Russian president Vladimir Putin, centre, with 2018 Winter Olympics athletes

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has imposed a four-year ban on Russia from all global sport, including the 2020 Olympics and the 2022 World Cup finals.

WADA's executive committee took the decision after concluding Moscow had tampered with laboratory data.

The agency found Russia planted fake evidence and deleted files linked to positive doping tests that could have helped identify drug cheats.

Russia has 21 days to appeal the decision through the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Sky's sports correspondent Martha Kelner has said the country is expected to appeal.

Individual Russian athletes untainted by the scandal will still be able to compete in competitions independently under a neutral flag.

It is unclear whether those who play team sports such as football will be able to play under a neutral flag.

Jonathan Taylor QC, chair of the compliance review committee (CRC), said: "There will be no Russian flag at the events that are covered (by the ban).

"There will not be a Russian flag and the athletes will not be participating as representatives of Russia.

"The details from sport to sport will have to differ because some are team sports, some are individual sports, so there is going to have to be a case by case basis."

Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov said after the judgement: "Everything possible was done to resolve this situation. Everything possible."

WADA said its decision was unanimous and its president Sir Craig Reedie accused Russia of choosing "deception and denial" rather than getting its house in order.

World Ant-Doping Agency (WADA) president Sir Craig Reedie said the mission could "potentially lead to many cases being actioned".

Sir Craig said: "The ExCo's (executive committee) strong decision today shows WADA's determination to act resolutely in the face of the Russian doping crisis, thanks to the agency's robust investigatory capability, the vision of the CRC, and WADA's recently acquired ability to recommend meaningful sanctions via the compliance standard which entered into effect in April 2018.

"Combined, these strengths have enabled the ExCo to make the right decisions at the right time.

"For too long, Russian doping has detracted from clean sport. The blatant breach by the Russian authorities of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency's (RUSADA) reinstatement conditions, approved by the ExCo in September 2018, demanded a robust response.

"That is exactly what has been delivered today. Russia was afforded every opportunity to get its house in order and rejoin the global anti-doping community for the good of its athletes and of the integrity of sport, but it chose instead to continue in its stance of deception and denial."

Russia has been hit with the ban after agreeing to allow WADA investigators into its laboratory in Moscow.

The investigators found that data there had been manipulated.

Russia will still be able to compete at the Euro 2020 football tournament next summer, which it has qualified for and is a tournament host with games due to be played at St Petersburg.

European football's governing body does not fall under the definition of a "major events organisation" under the international compliance code.

Russia has been banned from competing as a nation in athletics since 2015 when it was first declared non-compliant.

UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) welcomed the ban on Russia in a statement by saying it was the "only possible outcome".

UKAD chief executive Nicole Sapstead said: "We welcome today's decision to declare RUSADA non-compliant, and the decisive action by WADA's executive committee to impose four-year sanctions on Russian athletes and support personnel.

"This was the only possible outcome that the WADA ExCo could take to reassure athletes and the public and continue the task of seeking justice for those cheated by Russian athletes.

"We know however that this is not necessarily the end of the matter. If RUSADA choose to appeal this decision to CAS, this must be carried out with minimal delay, especially in light of the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

"We welcome the clear and detailed communication from WADA today which is vital in helping to maintain confidence in the global anti-doping system."

[GeneChing]

Everything You Need to Know About the 2020 Summer Olympics (https://time.com/5689792/2020-tokyo-olympics-when-where/)

https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tokyo-olympics-rings.jpg?w=800&quality=85
A dog is pictured on the Olympic Rings displayed at the Japan Sport Olympic Square beside the new National Stadium, still under construction, in Tokyo on July 24, 2019. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU—AFP/Getty Images
BY RAISA BRUNER
DECEMBER 26, 2019

It will be here before we know it: the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, this time taking place in Japan’s capital of Tokyo.

It’s Tokyo’s second time hosting a Summer Olympics, 56 years after their first time in the spotlight. These Games will see the introduction of some exciting new sports to the lineup, too: skateboarding will make its Olympic debut, as well as karate, surfing and sport climbing.

There will be plenty of classics to watch as well, from the ever-popular swimming and gymnastics events to track and field and team sports. And while Olympic trials have yet to take place, we’ll most likely be seeing the return of superstars like the 2016 gymnastics standout Simone Biles, swimming record-setter Katie Ledecky and track star Sydney McLaughlin, who was just 16 when she competed in the Rio Olympics and has been on the rise ever since.

When will the 2020 Olympics start?

The 2020 Summer Olympics will begin on July 24, 2020 and run until Aug. 9, 2020, with the opening ceremony on July 24 and the closing ceremony on Aug. 9. (Some preliminary events will take place as early as July 22.) In between, audiences around the world will tune in to two weeks of nonstop sports. Most of the big swimming events will take place over the first week, while the track and field competitions ramp up in the second half.

Where are the 2020 Olympics being held?

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The New National Stadium, the main stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium (bottom right) are pictured on July 24, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan. Carl Court—Getty Images

For the second time in its history, Tokyo is hosting the summer Olympics; they first hosted back in 1964. (Japan has also been home to two Winter Olympics, at Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.) Tokyo is the first city in Asia to host an Olympics twice.

This time, Tokyo is looking to many of its preexisting facilities to stage the summer’s events. The city has been renovating stadiums and rebuilding where they can: of 43 venues, 25 were already standing, while eight are new and 10 more temporary, as the Los Angeles Times reports. The Nippon Budokkan is getting fixed up as the site of judo competition and karate, for example, while the Baji Koen Park will host equestrian events and the Yoyogi National Gymnasium will be the spot for handball. (Back in 1964, it was the center of the swimming and diving events.) But the big site — the Tokyo National Stadium — has been the focus of a major overhaul. Originally, the Stadium was to be rebuilt to the specifications of a design by the late architect Zaha Hadid. That plan was scrapped due to cost concerns. The ultimate design is one by a Japanese architect, Kengo Kuma, at about half the price.

The decision on a host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics was determined back in 2013 in Argentina. The three final contenders during the bid process were Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo; Tokyo ended up ahead with 60 votes to 36 once the field had been narrowed down to Istanbul or Tokyo. Hosting the Olympics is a complex proposition for any city: while it offers potential economic upsides, thanks to increased construction, investment and tourism, many cities also struggle to make later use of the expansive facilities and housing that the Games require.

In 1964, Tokyo was the first Asian city to host the games. They had initially been scheduled as host for 1940, but the geopolitics of the era necessitated a shift. (The 1940 games were ultimately cancelled entirely.) The 1964 Games were actually held in October, to account for Japan’s midsummer heat and September typhoon season.

What sports are in the Summer Olympics?

The 2020 Summer Olympics will award medals across 339 events, representing 33 different sports. Five are new sports entirely (baseball/softball, skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing and karate), while others — like basketball — see the inclusion of new events within the discipline. Nothing has been dropped since 2016, which also saw the return of golf and rugby.
.
Here is the full list of sports, and the number of events within each sport: aquatics (49), archery (5), athletics (48), badminton (5), baseball/softball (2), basketball (4), boxing (13), canoeing (16), cycling (22), equestrian (6), fencing (12), field hockey (2), football (2), golf (2), gymnastics (18), handball (2), judo (15), karate (8), pentathlon (2), rowing (14), rugby (2), sailing (10), shooting (15), skateboarding (4), sport climbing (2), surfing (2), table tennis (5), taekwondo (8), tennis (5), triathlon (3), volleyball (4), weightlifting (14) and wrestling (18).

Which U.S. athletes will likely be competing?

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Oct. 1 2019, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Stuttgart: Gymnastics: World Championship, podium training in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle. picture alliance—dpa/picture alliance via Getty I

Simone Biles. Katie Ledecky. Sydney McLaughlin. Serena Williams. There’s still a lot up in the air about who will end up competing at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Some Olympic trials don’t take place until late in 2020; for track and field and swimming, for instance, trials to determine who will end up as an Olympian aren’t until June 2020, just a month before the Olympics themselves.

Other sports, like many of the team events and the marathon, choose their qualified athletes based on performance in international competitions over the course of 2019 and early 2020. NBC’s Olympics-dedicated Twitter account is a good place to keep track of preliminary and qualifying events.

As for individual athletes set to take the Olympic stage? Michael Phelps, the world’s winning-est Olympian and one of the most recognizable Summer Olympics athletes, probably won’t be back; recent public appearances suggest the dad of three is content letting his record speak for itself after representing the U.S. in four consecutive Olympics. But Simone Manuel, who made waves with her gold-medal tie in 2016, is a possible 2020 Olympian, and Nathan Adrian, who is currently battling testicular cancer, might be back for round three. And then there’s Ledecky, still distance swimming’s dominant force.

On the track and field side, recognizable names like Justin Gatlin may be in contention for a spot in the competition; the former 100m-medalist from 2004 is posting top times lately. Sydney McLaughlin was the U.S.’s youngest member of the track team in 2016, and has 2020 potential. And sprinter Noah Lyles has been considered an heir to the Usain Bolt throne. Caster Semenya, meanwhile, has been a dominant force in the field — but it remains to be seen whether the 800m champion will be allowed to compete. Semenya already has two gold medals under her belt, but recently she has been battling new regulations set down by the International Association of Athletics Federations that classify her as ineligible to run in women’s races based on the increased level of testosterone she genetically possesses.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

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As far as gymnastics goes, Simone Biles has been breaking records at recent national and international gymnastics competitions, suggesting that she’s ready to rock for 2020. Basketball, always a Team U.S.A. highlight, might see James Harden take the court in Tokyo. And a cast of familiar soccer stars — Rose LaVelle, Megan Rapinoe and Julie Ertz — may very well have a world stage moment once more since the U.S. Women’s National Team’s 2019 World Cup victory. While USWNT star Alex Morgan is expecting her first child, due just months before the Olympics, the forward has said she hopes to still compete in Tokyo after giving birth.

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Brazilian skateboarder Rayssa Leal competes in the Street League Skateboarding world championship women's final in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on September 22, 2019. NELSON ALMEIDA—AFP/Getty Images

The biggest change to the Olympics for 2020 is the addition of the five new sports and the return of baseball (absent in 2016), plus a few new events, like the three-on-three basketball competition.

One change sure to receive a lot of attention are the adjusted gymnastics team rules: instead of fielding a team of five athletes, each country will be whittled down to four all-around contestants, with two more teammates added to compete only in individual events.

Are there any big controversies ahead of the Olympics?

Concerns about costs
Olympics detractors point to rising costs as a serious concern; back in 2013, Tokyo suggested a budget of around $7 billion. That ballooned at one point to an estimated $30 billion, with organizers winnowing it down to nearer $25 billion for now. (For reference, Russia ended up spending $51 billion on the Sochi games — the highest known expenditure for an Olympics. That said, future summer games are looking at budgets below $10 billion, thanks to new regulations.)

Weather questions
Aside from the costs, there are some concerns about weather: Tokyo has seen increasingly high summer temperatures in the past few years, which means outdoor events like the marathon could be impacted. On the one-year-to-go mark this summer, the city also experienced a torrential downpour. (In 1964, the Tokyo Olympics were actually held in October to avoid these climate issues.)

USA Gymnastics
USA Gymnastics has been roiled by allegations of sexual assault against the team’s former doctor Larry Nassar in the past few years, with star gymnasts including Aly Raisman and Simone Biles speaking out about abuse and urging their governing body to take steps towards change.

Nassar pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual assault of a minor and was sentenced in 2018 to up to 175 years in Michigan state prison, but Raisman and others have remained vocal in her criticisms of the organizations for which he worked.

Questions about Russia
Russia will most likely not compete as a nation at the 2020 Olympics, after the World Anti-Doping Agency recommended in November that the country receive a four-year ban from international competition for not cooperating with doping investigations. In January, WADA shared their suspicions that Russia had tampered with its athletes’ data before presenting it for inspection to the agency. Russia has had a fraught history with doping allegations; it has been stripped of 43 Olympic medals over the years.

Although Russia said in December that it would appeal the WADA decision, if the potential ban is upheld, Russian athletes who have not been found guilty of doping would still be allowed to compete individually. The setup would be reminiscent of the 2018 Olympics, when a select number of Russian athletes were cleared to compete at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics as OAR — the neutral “Olympic Athletes Russian” delegation.

Doping
Russia isn’t the only country facing concerns about doping among its athletes. The use of substances to enhance athletic performance has long been a fixture in modern competition, and recently superstars like Lance Armstrong have had their legacies reconsidered in light of new information about doping.

Swimming has been in focus in particular lately: in October, U.S. swimmer and prior Olympic medalist Conor Dwyer announced his retirement following a 20-month ban due to the discovery of his testosterone use. Australia’s Shayna Jack failed a drug test in July, although she contends she ingested the banned substance unknowingly.

China’s Sun Yang has been a flashpoint of the doping controversy for years: he first tested positive for banned substances in 2014, and is under investigation for smashing a vial of his blood to avoid testing in 2016. At this summer’s world championships, where he dominated in his events, several fellow competitors voiced their objections to his continued appearance in the sport.

Bribery allegations
The longtime head of Japan’s Olympic Committee, Tsunekazu Takeda, stepped down this summer after a French investigation into the choice of Tokyo as the host city for 2020 uncovered potential corruption and the use of bribes in securing votes back in 2013. Takeda has maintained his innocence, but recused himself from his Olympic roles in the face of the controversy.

Water temperature and clarity
Like in Rio in 2016, there are some concerns about the quality of the water in Tokyo Bay, which will be home to sailing events and open-water distance swimming events. In 2017, trace amounts of E. coli bacteria — 20 times the safe standard — were found in the Bay, leading to an increased focus on decontamination. And at a test event in summer 2019, the water temperature itself led athletes to admit to being overheated during their long-distance swims.

In October, the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced that surveys of water quality and temperature in the Odaiba Marine Park showed that their attempts to improve water quality were “effective,” by using a series of underwater screens that reduced the presence of coliforms. Surveys of water temperature also suggested the temperatures on the same summer dates in 2019 were within the target.

https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tokyo-bay-swimming.jpg?w=800&quality=85
Swimmers dive into the sea at the start of the men's Marathon Swimming 5km competition, as a test event for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo on August 11, 2019. KAZUHIRO NOGI—AFP/Getty Images

Labor concerns
Labor organizations, including the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, have reported dangerous and problematic working conditions for construction workers contracted to build and refurbish Tokyo’s many venues, citing a “culture of fear” among workers, plus low pay and overwork, that may have led to multiple deaths so far. For its part, the IOC has said it is working closely with the U.N. agency the International Labour Organization, as the Japanese media has reported, and will be addressing the concerns “with relevant Japanese authorities.” That was in July.

How can I watch the 2020 Olympics?
As in the past, NBC will be home to 2020 Summer Olympics coverage. They will broadcast on TV and also have a home for all Olympics viewing on their Olympic Channel website, with events available to livestream. For cord-cutters, NBC apps for streaming and mobile will provide access on TVs and smart devices — but you will have to provide a cable login or buy a subscription in order to access the full coverage.

Where will the 2024 Summer Olympics be held?
The 2024 Summer Olympics will be held in Paris. And all the way out in 2028, Los Angeles will play host.

WRITE TO RAISA BRUNER AT RAISA.BRUNER@TIME.COM.

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BASEBALL5 AND WUSHU ADDED TO YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES PROGRAMME AT DAKAR 2022 (https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/stories/news/detail/dakar-2022-baseball5-wushu-new-sports/)
IOC Executive Board also approves dates for the 2022 Youth Olympic Games, the first Games held in Africa.
By ZK Goh
8 January 2020 7:58

Baseball5 and wushu will make their first appearance on a Games programme at the Dakar 2022 Summer Youth Olympics, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board (EB) approved the additions at a meeting on Wednesday (8 January) on the sidelines of the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympics.

The Dakar 2022 Organising Committee had asked for the two sports' inclusion, according to the IOC.

"The addition has the potential to further develop these two exciting sports in Africa," an IOC statement said.

Baseball, in its full nine-a-side nine-inning form, is making a return to the adult Olympic Games at Tokyo 2020, while wushu was held as an exhibition event during the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympics.

The Dakar 2022 Games will be staged from 22 October to 9 November 2022.

Gender equality

The additions of the two new sports – with five new events expected – will not affect the total gender equality at the Games.

Baseball5, which sees five players a side play five innings with the only equipment needed being a rubber ball, will be a mixed-gender team event.

It is the first Olympic team sport to be mixed-gender. Each team will include four men and four women.

Meanwhile, four events will be held in wushu, also known as "Chinese kungfu": men's and women's changquan, and men's and women's taijiquan.

"It is designed to play into our plans to have more gender equality and it is something that appeals to youth," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said.

"Both sports have a lot of interest in Africa and I think they will be a big success."

Other non-traditional Olympic events being held in the Senegalese capital are breaking, karate, skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing. Beach wrestling is also set to make its Games debut.

It means all the additional sports selected by both Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 will be contested at Dakar 2022.

Games dates

The Games have also had their dates confirmed. They will take place from 22 October to 9 November 2022.

Originally, it had been proposed that the Games take place earlier in the year, in May or June.

The IOC says the finalised dates were chosen after consulting National Olympic Committees, International Federations, and its own Athletes' Commission.

"For the large majority of athletes, the proposal better suits the school curriculum," the IOC said.

"From a climate standpoint, the YOG will take place at the beginning of the dry season.

"And for Dakar and Senegal, the dates coincide with Africa Youth Day (1 November), which is an important milestone in the calendar – school pupils will have more time to participate and contribute."

THREADS
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[GeneChing]

IOC makes it clear: Kneeling, raised fists, other protests not allowed at 2020 Olympics (https://sports.yahoo.com/olympics-2020-protests-ioc-rules-kneeling-165728097.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmVkZGl0LmNvbS9ob3Qv&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADdU5TilLheKjBS3ehwGPSJb43az fH7WAj5tKrau-XM4HlVgbN804v_mAKY8NbVBKA_4ZV475l0aQDWh0-pMthNGAfmQvNgwnFcUXGhbwVkKwlAWH9NGKwa4eeFMR_ynM20z UxOTPEghbfAaAh7tjio62LWlTcv4Zu5mgblbMG5a)
Henry Bushnell Yahoo Sports Jan 9, 2020, 8:57 AM

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/YH0PspSwz42LZBmI1WFepQ--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAw/https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-images/2020-01/8d844bf0-32f7-11ea-b7fb-7b7be1c62d17
American fencer and 2019 Pan American Games gold medalist Race Imboden dropped to a knee during the medal ceremony and the playing of the national anthem in Lima. (Leonardo Fernandez/Getty Images)

Before Thursday, the International Olympic Committee’s stance on protest at the Olympics Games was confined to one sentence in the Olympic Charter. It reeked of ambiguity and invited confusion. What, exactly, qualifies as a protest?

On Thursday, in an effort to keep politics far away from Tokyo 2020, the IOC answered that question with more specificity than ever before.

There will be no kneeling during national anthems.

No raising of fists, à la John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Games.

No politically charged signs or armbands.

At least not at any Olympic venue. Not in stadiums or at pools or at a course’s finish line. Not on podiums during medal ceremonies. Not during the opening and closing ceremonies. Not even in the Olympic Village.

And if there is? Discipline of some sort will follow.

The IOC laid out its policy in a three-page document published Thursday, six-and-a-half months before the 2020 Summer Games are set to begin. In what it deemed a “non-exhaustive list” of examples, it specifically mentioned the following as “constitut[ing] a protest, as opposed to expressing views”:

- Displaying any political messaging, including signs or armbands.

- Gestures of a political nature, like a hand gesture or kneeling.

- Refusal to follow the Ceremonies protocol.

The IOC did not specify what the punishment would be for athletes who violate the policy. Instead, it left itself disciplinary leeway. “Each incident will be evaluated by their respective National Olympic Committee, International Federation and the IOC, and disciplinary action will be taken on a case-by-case basis as necessary,” the document reads.

Which, U.S. Olympian Gwen Berry told Yahoo Sports, is “the crazy thing. It’s like, ‘If you do something, you’ll get in trouble, but we won’t tell you what it is.’ It’s just crazy. It’s a form of control.”

More on the IOC’s Olympic protest policy

The IOC document published Thursday clarifies the notorious Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter. “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas,” the Charter reads.

This past summer and fall, after three-plus years of protests of all kinds across many sports, Olympic officials realized they needed to address the rule’s ambiguity.

This became especially clear after two U.S. athletes staged podium demonstrations during the 2019 Pan American Games. Fencer Race Imboden dropped to a knee during his gold medal ceremony. Berry, a hammer thrower, raised a closed fist during hers.

The USOC, in response, wrote a letter – which was obtained by Yahoo Sports – to the two athletes. USOC CEO Sarah Hirshland formally reprimanded them, and placed them on 12-month probation, but acknowledged that the rules governing protest needed clarification.

"We recognize that we must more clearly define for Team USA athletes what a breach of these rules will mean in the future,” Hirshland wrote. "We are committed to more explicitly defining what the consequences will be for members of Team USA who protest at future Games. ... We also expect to work closely with the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee to engage in a global discussion on these matters.”

Discussions along those lines have happened, and will continue to happen going forward. Berry, however, told Yahoo Sports she has not been asked to participate in them. (The USOC has not yet commented on the IOC’s newly-released guidelines.)

The 2020 Olympics, of course, will not be an entirely politics-free zone. The IOC did clarify that “press conferences and interviews,” and “digital or traditional media,” are acceptable arenas for free expression. Some athletes, however, feel that restricting free expression is unacceptable.

Athletes respond to IOC president Bach

The IOC’s long-standing argument is that the Olympics should be “politically neutral.” That’s how IOC president Thomas Bach put it in a Jan. 1 open letter.

“The Olympic Games are always a global platform for the athletes and their sporting performances,” Bach wrote. “They are not, and must never be, a platform to advance political or any other potentially divisive ends. We stand firmly against the growing politicization of sport because only in this way can we accomplish our mission to unite the world in peaceful competition. As history has shown, such politicization of sport leads to no result and in the end just deepens existing divisions.”

The counterargument is the one Global Athlete, an international “progressive athlete start-up movement,” made in response to Bach. “Let’s be clear, the Olympic Movement has already politicized sport,” the group said in a statement.

It continued: “To mention a few instances; in PyeongChang the IOC promoted a unified South and North Korean team; the IOC has an observer seat around the United Nations Assembly; the IOC President regularly meets with Heads of States; the Olympic Movement notion of sport autonomy is overshowed by Heads of States also fulfilling roles as heads of National Olympic Committees and heads of IOC Commissions hold Ministerial positions.

“This ship has sailed; the IOC has already politicized sport.”

Responding to the IOC’s new protest policy, which restricts athletes’ politicization of their sports but not the IOC’s own politicization of them, Global Athlete tweeted, “Freedom of expression is a right!”

Berry, on Thursday night, told Yahoo Sports: “We shouldn’t be silenced.” The policy, she said, “definitely is a form of control.”

This contentious conversation will continue into and throughout the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. “It is a fundamental principle that sport is neutral and must be separate from political, religious or any other type of interference,” the document released by the IOC on Thursday reads. That will never be entirely true. But the IOC is determined to protect Olympic competitions themselves from anything that might deter or anger viewers.

– – – – – – –

Henry Bushnell is a features writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Question? Comment? Email him at henrydbushnell@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @HenryBushnell, and on Facebook.

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Tokyo 2020 to power Olympic torch with hydrogen for first time (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-torch-idUSKBN1ZQ0D5?fbclid=IwAR1dvbp2rxVrm5RrrVjxA190eLz 0HS55B92mYKGXgxK35YOFdPJlVKVhNSs)
2 MIN READ

https://s2.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20200127&t=2&i=1481868168&w=1200&r=LYNXMPEG0Q0G3
FILE PHOTO: The Olympic torch of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is displayed at a Torch Relay event to mark the 300-day milestone to the starting date of the torch relay, in Tokyo, Japan June 1, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato

TOKYO (Reuters) - Hydrogen will be used for the first time to power the Olympic torch during its journey through Japan, organizers said on Monday, as part of Tokyo 2020’s efforts to hold an environmentally friendly Games.

Organizers aim to offset all carbon emissions generated during the Games and also use the Olympics to boost awareness of environmental issues in Japan.

The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee said certain stages of the torch relay will use hydrogen, which emits no carbon dioxide when it is burned, and it will also fuel the ceremonial Olympic Cauldron featuring in the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies.

Hydrogen will be used to power the torch on its journey through the prefectures of Fukushima and Aichi, as well as parts of Tokyo, with gas used in other stages of the relay.

“During its preparations for the Games, Tokyo 2020 has consistently promoted energy conservation and the use of renewable energy with the aim of supporting the realization of a carbon-neutral society,” the organizers said in a statement.

About 500 hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles will also be used during the Olympics, which run from July 24 to Aug. 9.

Other initiatives to cut the environmental impact of the Games include beds made from recyclable cardboard in the athletes’ village, Olympic medals made from recycled consumer electronics and the torches themselves, formed of aluminum waste.

The torch relay begins in Fukushima on March 26 and will visit all 47 of Japan’s prefectures ahead of the July 24 opening ceremony.

Reporting by Jack Tarrant; Editing by Clarence Fernandez Cardboard beds? Well, it couldn't be worse than Rio (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68588-2016-Rio-Olympics).

[GeneChing]

No car, no job, no home: What a female karate master gave up to go for 2020 Olympics gold (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/21/what-a-female-karate-kid-gave-up-to-go-for-2020-tokyo-olympics-gold.html?__source=sharebar%7Cfacebook&par=sharebar&fbclid=IwAR2p2jdVs9A17nCcRXLQ-Ri8M4MgD_GnqTPHrW8_pzoG-6qG8_tDT28Ebaw)
PUBLISHED FRI, FEB 21 20209:56 AM ESTUPDATED SAT, FEB 22 20205:07 PM EST
Candice Goldman
Jane Wells
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KEY POINTS
Like many American athletes, Sakura Kokumai has given up everything to train for the 2020 Olympics in a sport that doesn’t attract many sponsors or much money.
She quit her job to focus on training, lives with a host family, and sometimes sleeps on a gym floor.
Kokumai has been practicing karate since the age of seven and this may be her only shot at an Olympic medal: Karate will not be in the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.

Money is this U.S. Olympic hopeful’s biggest hurdle

Her hands move in a blur. Then they stop, frozen like stone.

Sakura Kokumai is 27 years old and could be America’s best hope for a medal in karate at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

She has a menacing presence in the dojo, even though she is not quite five feet tall. Somehow, when she puts on her “gi,” or uniform, Kokumai seems to grow.

“Whenever I wear a gi, I feel very strong. I feel confident, and I feel more like myself,” she says.

There are two types of karate debuting at the Tokyo Games. One is sparring, called kumite. The other is a series of precise movements done individually, called kata. “I always explain it as like figure skating without music,” Kokumai says.

She is No. 1 in the U.S. in women’s kata, and she’s top five in the world, winning gold at the Pan American Games last fall and silver at the Karate Premier League Tournament in Dubai last week.

She accomplished all of this without a coach.

Kokumai is living for free with a host family in California. She has no car. Her wardrobe consists mostly of Team USA clothing, and when asked how much money she has in the bank, she hesitates. “A little,” she finally admits with a laugh.

Like thousands of Americans, Sakura Kokumai has given up everything to train for the Olympics in a sport that doesn’t attract many sponsors or much money. But unlike many of those other athletes, she never thought the Olympics could be in her future.

“A lot of swimmers, wrestlers, they will grow up dreaming about the Olympics because they see athletes competing at the Games before,” she says. “For us karate athletes, it was like a different universe.”

Suddenly when the International Olympic Committee decided in 2016 to add karate to the Tokyo games, Kokumai had decisions to make. “Where do I go? Where do I start? What do I do?”

Training since seven

Kokumai began taking karate lessons at the age of 7 in Hawaii. “My mom kind of threw me into a YMCA class,” she says. She enjoyed the sport and the people. “To me, karate was more of an escape...just something peaceful about it. It was calming.”

Kata in particular attracted her. “It’s less than three minutes, but I felt like I was expressing myself through the kata, so I think I fell in love with the art of it.”

Kokumai says each kata routine is a fixed set of movements that’s been “passed down for years.” What an individual athlete can change “is the rhythm, the timing.”

https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106401518-1582235853741widepose.jpg?v=1582246963&w=740&h=416
Sakura Kokumai, 2007 Panamerican Junior Championship, Quito, Ecuador
Sakura Kokumai

Kokumai says her small stature allows her “to show more speed” than someone who is taller. “I think strength is my power.”

She became good enough to start competing overseas as a teenager. “It’s been nonstop since then.”

Kokumai eventually went to college in Japan, earning an undergraduate degree in linguistics and education, followed by a master’s in international relations, and she was working in Tokyo when word came down that karate was going to be in the 2020 Olympics. Upon hearing the news, “I didn’t know what to do to train,” Kokumai says. “I didn’t know what it took to get there, because there was no example. It’s the first time, and there was no past karate Olympian.”

Kokumai tried to continue working and training, but found herself falling asleep doing stretches. She wasn’t eating right. “I soon realized that juggling work and karate was impossible. So I decided to quit my job.”

That’s when she moved to California. She trains in the garage at the home where she stays, and she walks to the local gym. “I did find a strength conditioning coach, but he’s in San Diego.”

Once in a while, Kokumai spends around $50 to take an Amtrak train to San Diego, where her conditioning coach lets her sometimes sleep over in the gym.

Could be first and last shot at Olympic gold
Even though Sakura Kokumai has spent much of her life traveling back and forth to Japan, there was never any question in her mind which country to compete for. “I started karate in Hawaii, I looked up to athletes who have represented the U.S.,” she says. “I always identified myself as an American.”

Money, however, is increasingly on her mind. “Because I’m my own coach, I never really had the time to handle the other things, which has been a struggle.”

She recently picked up Panasonic as a sponsor, though she will not reveal what kind of financial help, if any, comes with that. She receives a monthly stipend from Team USA, and the USA Karate Federation reimburses her travel expenses to international tournaments crucial to earning enough qualifying points for the Olympics.

https://media.giphy.com/media/gK5ZZD9MoC49K4qsEW/giphy.gif
via GIPHY

There are no guarantees Kokumai will earn one of the 10 spots for female kata in Tokyo, though she is currently among the world’s best. Only Japan is guaranteed one spot — the remaining nine will be based on an individual athlete’s global ranking.

This could be Kokumai’s only shot at an Olympic medal. Karate will not be in the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. What if all this work and sacrifice is for nothing? Even if she does win gold, is there any financial reward for a kata karate athlete?

“My focus right now is to qualify, and then my thought was, OK, once I get there, then I’ll figure it out,” she laughs.

Maybe after she qualifies, Sakura Kokumai will be able to afford a coach. Or maybe not.

“I just practice and do what I know, and it’s gotten me where I am today,” she says, “so I guess I’m doing all right.”




Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of spots Japan is guaranteed in female kata at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

THREADS
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)

[Jimbo]

If Covid-19 is still surging, I’m wondering if there will even BE a Tokyo Olympics, even I though Japan isn’t the epicenter of it. Look at how faraway countries, like Italy, Iran, etc., are being affected.

[GeneChing]

If Covid-19 is still surging, I’m wondering if there will even BE a Tokyo Olympics, even I though Japan isn’t the epicenter of it. Look at how faraway countries, like Italy, Iran, etc., are being affected. Indeed. I just posted on how it's affected the Universaide (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69746-Wushu-at-the-Universiade&p=1317951#post1317951).

Then there's this:

Tokyo Governor criticises "inappropriate" offer from London to host Olympics because of coronavirus crisis (https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1090862/tokyo-governor-london-row-olympics)
By Liam Morgan Friday, 21 February 2020

https://www.insidethegames.biz/media/image/170950/o/DSETPVkBG0KesDHI
©Getty Images

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has criticisied an "inappropriate" offer from London to step in to replace the city as hosts of this year's Olympic and Paralympic Games because of the coronavirus outbreak.

London Mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey claimed the city "can host the Olympics in 2020" and the world "might need us to step up" due to the virus, which has so far killed 2,250 people and infected over 76,000 worldwide.

Bailey is a candidate for the Conservatives, the same party that Britain's current Prime Minister Boris represents, and added he would "make sure London is ready to answer the call and host the Olympics again" if he is elected Mayor.

Johnson was the Mayor of London when the city hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012.

In response, Koike claimed it was "not appropriate to try to make it an issue in a Mayoral election".

"A reason why this issue has attracted global attention is due to the cruise ship," Koike, referencing the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan which is thought to have 600 cases of the virus, said.

"But the cruise ship’s nationality belongs to Britain.

"I wish aspects like these would be well understood."

https://www.insidethegames.biz/media/image/170953/o/4w8bUVOFInCcTq32
More than 600 cases of the virus have been reported on the quarantined cruise ship ©Getty Images

Two people on the cruise ship, which has been docked in Japan since February 3, have died from the virus so far.

Tokyo 2020 and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have insisted the Games will not be postponed or cancelled because of the virus, given the official title of COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO).

John Coates, chair of the IOC Coordination Commission for Tokyo 2020, claimed this week the organisation was "satisified" the event will be safe to attend.

During a project review of Tokyo 2020 last week, Coates claimed the WHO had told the IOC there was no case for cancelling or postponing the Games.

Tokyo 2020 President Yoshirō Mori has also remained defiant and blasted what he claimed were "irresponsible" rumours surrounding whether the Games would take place as planned.

Koike claimed she does not foresee any changes to the schedule for the Games, which begin with the Olympics Opening Ceremony on July 24.

"I think we are not yet reaching that point," Koike said.



About the author
Liam Morgan Senior chief reporter
Since joining insidethegames.biz, in 2015 Liam Morgan has covered a variety of international multi-sport events and conferences, including the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games and the Lillehammer 2016 Winter Youth Olympics. He also reported from the 2017 IOC Session in Lima and three editions of the FIFA Congress. He graduated from Southampton Solent University in 2014 with a BA First Class honours degree in Sports Journalism.

THREADS
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
COVID-19 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

If Covid-19 is still surging, I’m wondering if there will even BE a Tokyo Olympics And right after our discussion above, this gets posted.


CORONAVIRUS 12:25 P.M.
The Coronavirus Is Already Affecting the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/the-coronavirus-is-already-affecting-the-2020-tokyo-olympics.html)
By Adam K. Raymond

https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2020/02/24/24-tokyo-olympics-mask.w700.h467.jpg
Masked spectators look on at the Olympic torch relay rehearsal in Tokyo. Photo: Du Xiaoyi/Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

The opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is still five months away, and officials insist the Games will go on as planned, despite the global coronavirus panic. But the deadly and still-mysterious infection caused by the virus, known as COVID-19, has already begun to affect preparations for the Summer Games. Movement of athletes has been limited, qualifying events have been disrupted, and plans to train tens of thousands of volunteers have been postponed.

In public, Japanese officials are doing everything they can to calm fears. “There are no considerations of canceling the Games, nor will the postponements of these activities have an impact on the overall Games preparation,” officials said Friday after training for Olympic volunteers in Tokyo was postponed. Training for the 80,000 volunteers has been pushed back to May in what officials called “part of efforts to prevent the spread of infection.”

Japan has seen the fourth most cases of coronavirus, not counting the hundreds of cases aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Ahead of it are Italy, South Korea, and China, where the disease originated and at least 77,150 have been infected. The numbers in Japan could increase soon though. Last week, as passengers were allowed to leave the cruise ship, critics said the disorganization could lead to a spike in cases throughout the country.

Already, coronavirus fears have led to the cancellation of high-profile public gatherings in Tokyo. Last week, participation in the Tokyo Marathon was restricted to only elite athletes, limiting the field to about 200.

Next month, the Olympic torch is set to begin a four-month relay though Japan. Roughly 10,000 torchbearers are expected to carry the torch through all 47 of Japan’s prefectures. A dress rehearsal for the relay, held earlier this month, provided a glimpse of what the real thing looked like. As participants carried the torch, spectators lined the streets in masks.

Even if the Tokyo Olympics go off as planned, and the summer heat quells the spread of the virus, as many hope, it will have made an impact on the Games. The preparation of some athletes, especially those in China, has already suffered, Reuters reports:


At home, many of China’s Olympic hopefuls are confined to closed training bases, unable to venture abroad due to entry restrictions placed by countries to contain the virus that has killed more than 2,500 people in China.

Overseas, a slew of China’s national teams remain in hastily arranged training camps scattered across the globe, unable to return home for fear of being swept up in virus-related travel restrictions.

China’s gymnastics team was also kept from participating in a recent international competition in Australia due to travel restrictions, and China’s national women’s soccer team spent two weeks under quarantine in Brisbane.

There are also emerging questions about how many people will be willing to travel to watch the Olympics. Coronavirus fears have led to a huge drop in tourism to Asia. Travelers from within China are staying put, and those from outside the region are wary to enter it. Olympic organizers are hoping five months is enough time to turn that trend around.

THREADS
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
COVID-19 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

A Polish Olympian Aimed to Join Team U.S.A. Things Got Ugly. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/sports/olympics/fencing-poland.html?fbclid=IwAR25VAzJY-CnYbWit4sCPmdmqcyuCqTZW9mYNwJrdzD84QfKz4eR7rrKjoI)
Aleksandra Shelton, a four-time Olympic fencer, grew frustrated by what she considered age and gender discrimination. But when she sought to compete for the United States, Polish officials stood in her way.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/02/24/sports/24JPfencer1-print/merlin_169011888_ebc722e6-71d1-43e1-b897-2ef8a5bd65e6-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
Aleksandra Shelton is a former world and European champion.Credit...Mason Trinca for The New York Times

By Jeré Longman
Feb. 23, 2020

As an 11-year-old in Poland, Aleksandra Shelton saw her mother competing in a fencing competition on television. Intrigued by the sport and the allure of also appearing on TV someday, she built a saber fencing career that far surpassed her mother’s aspirations.

A decade later, Shelton won a bronze medal at the 2003 world championships. Then she took gold at the 2004 and 2008 European championships. She has competed in the past four Olympics for Poland. And she anticipated that this summer in Tokyo she would become only the fourth Polish woman — and about the 220th woman worldwide — to participate in five or more Games.

But Shelton, a dual citizen who is married to an American serviceman, encountered what she said was age and gender discrimination from Polish fencing officials after the birth of her first child three years ago. So she made a desperate attempt at nation-switching, hoping to head to her fifth Games as an American. Poland, however, has blocked the change, trapping Shelton between the two countries, leaving her unable as of now to compete in Tokyo for either.

Sandwiched by the heated politics of athletes’ rights and the baroque rules of Olympic eligibility, she is facing the sporting complications that can confront women who become mothers.

“After every storm, there needs to be a sunny day,” Shelton, who turns 38 next month, said in a telephone interview. “But it’s been more than two years of heavy rain.”

Shelton said Polish fencing officials began to reduce support for her once she became pregnant after the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She gave birth to a son in 2017.

“She felt she was an expired product in their eyes,” said Carlos Sayao, Shelton’s Toronto-based lawyer.

Frustrated, Shelton sought a different path to her fifth Olympics, and a chance to win an elusive first medal. She has competed as an American since January 2019. But here the story gets complicated.

To prevent mass nation-hopping, athletes generally must wait three years after changing countries to compete in an Olympic Games, unless they receive a special waiver.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/02/24/sports/24JPfencer2-print/merlin_158066169_8061f1a4-0f93-4ce1-9c4d-54e3715a71bd-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
Shelton has competed as an American since January 2019, but doing so in the Olympics is more complicated.
Credit...Tibor Illyes/MTI, via Associated Press

A year ago, the matter seemed all but resolved in Shelton’s favor before combusting in recrimination during the spring and summer. In September, the Polish Olympic Committee declined to grant her an exemption to compete in Tokyo as an American. And since she has already switched national affiliations once, she can’t compete for Poland anymore. The Polish Olympic Committee declined to comment for this article due to an ongoing legal process.

Shelton has appealed her case to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, a kind of Supreme Court for international sports. No hearing date has been set, and time is growing short. The United States Olympic fencing team will be chosen in April.

The case has received widespread attention in Poland, where the national federations that govern various sports operate with near-complete autonomy and can exert tremendous control over the careers of athletes.

Internationally, the oversight of sports governing bodies has come under intense scrutiny, including in the United States, where recent sexual abuse scandals have rocked several sports, particularly gymnastics and figure skating. In Poland last fall, Witold Banka, a former sports minister, described the top management of the country’s sports federations as being “like a cancer that is destroying Polish sport.”

Two top officials of the Polish fencing federation said in a joint email that they had not discarded Shelton after she gave birth, but instead had considered her the leader of the Polish women’s saber team heading toward the Tokyo Olympics.

They expressed suspicion that her effort to compete for the United States was rooted in strategy, not unfair treatment, after Poland’s failure to win any medals at the 2018 world fencing championships. The officials — Ryszard Sobczak and Tadeusz Tomaszewski — called Shelton’s accusations “untrue and full of slander.”

Shelton tells a different story. When she became pregnant, she said, Polish fencing officials prevented her from becoming the head saber coach at a prominent club in Warsaw. Their claim, she said, was that she lacked experience, even though she had competed in four Olympics.

Her coach at the time acknowledged in an interview that pregnancy was “a factor” in the decision because the coaching post would have required frequent travel and increased demands on Shelton’s time.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/02/24/sports/24JPfencer3-print/merlin_169011873_0e528789-4703-4ecd-9a2e-4a572a8498cd-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
Shelton’s decision to pursue a switch of her national affiliation has cost her competitively and financially.
Credit...Mason Trinca for The New York Times

After Shelton gave birth, she said, the Polish fencing federation reneged on a promise to provide a physiotherapist to help her get back into competitive shape. Officials also declined, she said, to let her continue to train in Portland, Ore., a hub of American fencing, where Shelton has lived part time since 2010.

While nothing was said to her face by fencing officials, Shelton said she heard indirectly from colleagues that the Polish federation felt “I am too old, I should stay at home.”

Eventually, Shelton said, the Polish fencing federation seemed to sabotage her ability to continue competing for the Polish army team, causing her to lose her military retirement benefits. The federation strongly denied this, saying the army team remained available only to fencers still competing internationally for Poland. Broadly speaking, the federation officials wrote in their email that Shelton was attempting to “manipulate the facts to fit her narrative.”

Despite recent struggles, Poland’s 22 Olympic fencing medals (19 won by men, 3 by women) rank seventh among competing nations. Individual and team competitions are held in épée, foil and saber events.

“She is not in a shape that would allow her to compete in individual events, but in the United States she could compete as part of their team,” said Piotr Stroka, who coached Shelton in Warsaw and disagreed with her decision to pursue a nationality switch.

Stroka dismissed claims of discrimination, saying that Polish female fencers are “perhaps treated even better than men.” In Shelton’s case, he said, the federation “did everything it could for her.”

Yet it is not unusual for pregnant women in Olympic sports to find themselves in a disadvantaged position. Nike, for instance, faced withering criticism last year from American track stars sponsored by the company for reducing performance-based payments surrounding the period of childbirth. Facing a backlash, the sportswear giant amended its policy.

In Poland, sports federations in general have also endured searing rebuke. Banka, the former Polish sports minister who is now president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, told a radio interviewer in November that federations there are often “managed by irresponsible people who run them in an unethical way.”

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/02/20/sports/20fencer-4/merlin_169011876_1a31189f-c4eb-47d4-bfbf-ecdf03a7f019-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
Shelton in Portland, Ore., where she has trained part time since 2010.
Credit...Mason Trinca for The New York Times

After the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Sylwia Gruchala, a two-time Olympic fencing medalist for Poland, publicly said the country’s fencing federation was incompetent and did not sufficiently support its athletes. After agreeing to an interview for this article, she changed her mind, saying, “I have a good life now and don’t want to start a war.”

Shelton’s case appeared on the verge of an amicable resolution early last year. U.S.A. Fencing and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee supported her in official requests to switch nationalities. The Polish fencing federation gave her a release for Olympic eligibility as an American. All she needed to become eligible for the Tokyo Games was a final waiver from the Polish Olympic Committee.

But in March, Shelton, feeling exasperated by what she considered foot-dragging, publicly criticized the Polish fencing federation. Among other things, she questioned the ethics of requiring her to agree to pay 43,000 euros, nearly $47,000, in cash or fencing equipment to secure her release.

The Polish federation said the payment was necessary to recover training costs it had incurred for Shelton since the 2016 Olympics. Otherwise, officials said, they would have essentially been subsidizing an American athlete. Hubert Radke, a Polish sports lawyer not involved in the case, said that Polish sports federations impose financial barriers and other regulations that frequently restrict the freedom of athletes. Ultimately, the payment agreement fell apart.

Her comments infuriated Polish fencing officials, and they demanded an apology and threatened to sue Shelton. The fencing federation urged the Polish Olympic Committee not to grant her the release needed to compete for the United States in Tokyo. On Sept. 10, the committee complied. This month, the fencing federation said that Shelton’s behavior was “reprehensible and unworthy of an athlete.”

Shelton said, “They just want to destroy me.”

The uncertainty continues, fair or not.

Radke, the independent sports lawyer, said the matter appeared black and white. “I don’t see any justified reasons to deny her right to compete.”



Joanna Berendt contributed reporting from Warsaw.



THREADS
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Fencing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?9851-Fencing)

[Jimbo]

I'm wondering if, rather than outright cancelling it, if the Tokyo Olympics could be postponed maybe a year (or whenever this pandemic is stopped?). Or maybe that's somehow "impossible" and non-negotiable(?).

There is a couple who are mentors to me who had been planning a trip to Tokyo this month (they have a contract to go there twice a year), and yesterday I was relieved to learn they cancelled their trip due to the coronavirus, and will be doing their teaching for the Tokyo company they are contracted with over Skype rather than in person.

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIccp00GNoA&feature=emb_logo

THREADS
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
COVID-19 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[SteveLau]

Postpone the Game to no more than a year later is the best and wise option. It is a very sad and very difficult decision to be made.



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[GeneChing]

Tokyo Olympics will go ahead 'with or without Covid' - IOC's Coates (https://sports.yahoo.com/tokyo-olympics-ahead-without-covid-034318007.html)
AFP
Martin PARRY
AFPSep 6, 2020, 10:50 PM

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/m_f0jY4MZNXY5pRzb1RPLg--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NzY4O2g9NTEw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/afp.com/41e950fe12fd0575648fda1702e99ad0

Tokyo's postponed Olympics will go ahead next year regardless of the coronavirus pandemic, IOC vice president John Coates told AFP Monday, vowing they will be the "Games that conquered Covid".

The Olympics have never been cancelled outside of the world wars and Coates, speaking in a phone interview, was adamant that the Tokyo Games will start on their revised date.

"It will take place with or without Covid. The Games will start on July 23 next year," said Coates, who heads the International Olympic Committee's Coordination Commission for the Tokyo Games.

"The Games were going to be, their theme, the Reconstruction Games after the devastation of the tsunami," he said, referring to a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan in 2011.

"Now very much these will be the Games that conquered Covid, the light at the end of the tunnel."

In a landmark decision, the 2020 Olympics were postponed because of the global march of the pandemic and they are now set to open on July 23, 2021.

But Japan's borders are still largely closed to foreign visitors and a vaccine is months or even years away, feeding speculation about whether the Games are feasible at all.

Japanese officials have made clear they would not delay them a second time beyond 2021.

There are signs that public enthusiasm in Japan is waning after a recent poll found just one in four Japanese want them to go ahead next year, with most backing either another postponement or a cancellation.


- 'Monumental task' -

Coates said the Japanese government "haven't dropped the baton at all" following the postponement, despite the "monumental task" of putting the event back a year.

"Before Covid, (IOC president) Thomas Bach said this is the best prepared Games we've ever seen, the venues were almost all finished, they are now finished, the village is amazing, all the transport arrangements, everything is fine," he said.

"Now it's been postponed by one year, that's presented a monumental task in terms of re-securing all the venues... something like 43 hotels we had to get out of those contracts and re-negotiate for a year later.

"Sponsorships had to be extended a year, broadcast rights."

With much of that work underway, or accomplished, a task force has been set up to look at the different scenarios in 2021 -- from how border controls will affect the movement of athletes, to whether fans can pack venues and how to keep stadiums safe.

The group, comprising Japanese and IOC officials, met for the first time last week.

"Their job now is to look at all the different counter-measures that will be required for the Games to take place," said Coates, the long-time president of the Australian Olympic Committee.

"Some countries will have it (Covid) under control, some won't. We'll have athletes therefore coming from places where it's under control and some where it is not.

"There's 206 teams... so there's a massive task being undertaken on the Japanese side."

Tokyo 2020 chief Toshiro Muto on Friday repeated that organisers hoped to avoid a Games without spectators -- an option that has been mooted given Japan is still limiting audiences at sports events.

While the country is cautiously reopening its economy, with professional baseball, football and sumo resuming in front of limited numbers of fans, the nation continues to see a steady stream of new coronavirus cases.

Japan has already ploughed billions of dollars into the Olympics, with the delay only adding to the cost.

Coates said the IOC was doing its part, putting in "something like an extra $800 million to support the international federations, whose income isn't happening this year, and national Olympic Committees".

mp/arb/th

threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

JAN. 21, 2021
Japan Reportedly ‘Privately Concludes’ to Cancel the 2021 Olympic Games Due To Coronavirus (https://www.vulture.com/2021/01/japan-might-cancel-2021-tokyo-olympics-due-to-coronavirus.html)
By Chris Murphy@christress
https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/b08/78e/d95872dceb09de416425f12686dfa8d78c--22Olympics-22.2x.rsquare.w330.jpg
Photo: SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett
First Glastonbury, now this. In sobering news after yesterday’s inauguration festivities, Japan has reportedly decided to cancel the 2021 Olympics due to coronavirus. On Thursday, January 21, the Times reported that the Japanese government has “privately concluded” to cancel the already once-postponed 2021 Olympics because of surging cases of COVID-19 across the world. Per the report written by Richard Lloyd Parry, Japan is trying to find a “face-saving way” to announce the decision that also “leaves open the possibility of Tokyo playing host at a later date.” Apparently, Japan’s new focus is to lock in 2032, the next available year, to host the games in Tokyo, which were originally scheduled to begin on July 24, 2020 and then rescheduled to begin on July 23, 2021. “No one wants to be the first to say so but the consensus is that it’s too difficult,” a source told Lloyd Parry. “Personally, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

However, as of now the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) would beg to differ. Earlier that same day, the I.O.C. released a statement claiming that the 2021 Olympics would go on as planned this summer. “We have, at this moment, no reason whatsoever to believe that the Olympic Games in Tokyo will not open on 23 July in the Olympic stadium in Tokyo,” said I.O.C. president Thomas Bach. “This is why there is no plan B and this is why we are fully committed to make these Games safe and successful.” While Back was firm about the 2021 Tokyo Olympics happening, he did hint at potentially reducing the number of spectators as well as other employing other precautions in order to ensure everyone’s safety.“ The priority is the safety,” Bach told Kyodo News. “When it comes to safety, then there can be no taboo.”

Publicly, the I.O.C and Japanese Olympic organizers have tried to assure the public that the 2021 Olympic games will happen, with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga calling the forthcoming Olympics “a proof of human victory against the coronavirus.” But senior I.O.C. member Dick Pound cast some doubt as to whether the event will actually take place, stating, “I can’t be certain because the ongoing elephant in the room would be the surges in the virus.” So, TBD whether or not we ever get to see Simone Biles defy gravity again or if coronavirus will rob us of that as well.

And just like that, Karate suffers a worse Olympic fate than Wushu.

[UKJim]

I lived in Kobe until recently amazing place, so sad the Olympics will not happen

[GeneChing]

Tokyo Olympic Games 2020
Olympic organisers to ban singing in silent Tokyo Games (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/03/olympic-athletes-to-be-tested-every-four-days-as-tokyo-publishes-playbook?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1)
Competitors must take Covid test 72 hours before departure
Told not to use public transport on arrival in Tokyo
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/322edc8ceef18f47b9528f4c4d3b2b8ac37452ea/0_300_4500_2700/master/4500.jpg
The first version of a playbook of Covid virus safety rules organisers say will ensure the Tokyo Olympic Games can be held from July. Photograph: Du Xiaoyi/AFP/Getty Images
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Wed 3 Feb 2021 07.46 EST

The organisers of the 2020 Olympics are planning a silent Games in Tokyo, with bans on singing and chanting among a list of restrictions officials say will protect athletes, staff and the public from coronavirus.

The IOC’s first “Covid playbook”, published on Wednesday, is aimed at sports federations and technical officials, but similar measures designed to prevent the Games from becoming a superspreader event are expected to apply to athletes – and possibly spectators – when the Olympics open on 23 July.

The playbook says visitors should “support athletes by clapping and not singing or chanting”, while athletes will be subject to testing a minimum of once every four days while they are in Tokyo. All visitors will be required to present proof of a recent negative test upon arrival in Japan, but vaccination will not be a condition of participating in the Games, which were postponed for a year last March as the pandemic began its spread across the globe.

Athletes and officials will not be permitted to use public transport without permission, must also wear face masks when appropriate, and practice social distancing. Exceptions will be made for when athletes are eating, sleeping or outside.

Despite speculation the postponed Games could be called off as a result of the pandemic, the IOC’s executive director, Christophe Dubi, said he was confident the guidelines would ensure the safety of everyone involved. “The health and safety of everyone at the Olympic and Paralympic Games are our top priority,” he said. “We each have our part to play. That’s why these playbooks have been created – with the rules that will make each and every one of us a sound, safe and active contributor to the Games.”

Dubi added that Tokyo 2020 “will be remembered as a historic moment for humanity, the Olympic movement and all those contributing to their success”.

Craig Spence, of the International Paralympic Committee, said the world knew much more about the virus – and how to contain it – than it did when the Games were postponed. “The thousands of international sports events that have taken place safely over the last year have given us valuable learning experiences,” he said.

“Combining this new knowledge with existing knowhow has enabled us to develop these playbooks, which will be updated with greater detail ahead of the Games.”

Detailed guidelines for broadcasters, athletes and the media will be released in the coming days.

While a decision on whether to allow fans to attend is not expected for a few months, anyone watching the events will be told to refrain from singing or shouting and to show their support by applauding instead.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0ed515c1b2df06e831ea1744f26db95277e969e8/0_0_4248_2832/master/4248.jpg
A man stands in front of a countdown clock for the Tokyo Games on Wednesday. Photograph: Koji Sasahara/AP
Athletes and officials will be banned from visiting bars, restaurants and tourist spots in Tokyo and will only be permitted to travel on official transport between the venues and their accommodations. The playbook warns them they could be ejected from the Games for serious or repeated violations of the rules.

“We draw to your attention that risks and impacts may not be fully eliminated and that you agree to attend … at your own risk,” the playbook says. “We trust that these measures are proportionate to mitigate the above-mentioned risks and impacts and we fully count on your support to comply with them. Non-respect of the rules … may expose you to consequences that may have an impact on your participation … [and] your access to Games venues.

“Repeated or serious failures to comply with these rules may result in the withdrawal of your accreditation and right to participate.”

Japan has been hit less severely by the pandemic than many other comparable countries, with fewer than 6,000 deaths recorded. But a recent surge in cases last month forced the government to declare a state of emergency in Tokyo and other hard-hit regions that is due to last until early March and to close its borders to non-resident foreigners.

There is growing concern that an influx of 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes, as well as large number of sponsors, officials and other Games-related staff will spread the virus. Opinion polls show that a large majority of Japanese people do not want the Olympics to go ahead.

The playbook was released as medical officials in Tokyo warned that doctors and nurses treating Covid-19 patients would not have the time to volunteer at the Olympics. Satoru Arai, the director of the Tokyo Medical Association, said staff were under too much pressure to even consider signing up for Olympic duty.

“No matter how I look at it, it’s impossible,” he told Reuters. “I’m hearing doctors who initially signed up to volunteer say there’s no way they can take time off to help when their hospitals are completely overwhelmed.”

Games organisers and the Tokyo metropolitan government have asked the association to secure more than 3,500 medical staff for the event.


threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

NBC to air Tokyo Olympic Opening Ceremony in first live morning broadcast (https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2021/02/10/nbc-tokyo-olympics-opening-ceremony-live-morning/)
By OlympicTalkFeb 10, 2021, 9:07 AM EST
https://olympics.nbcsports.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/10/tokyo_1-e1539173712145.jpg
NBC Olympics

NBC airs its first-ever live morning broadcast of an Olympic Opening Ceremony from Tokyo as part of unprecedented daylong network coverage of the first Friday of an Olympics on July 23.

The Tokyo Opening Ceremony starts at 8 p.m. locally, which will be 7 a.m. Eastern time. NBC’s broadcast coverage that morning starts at 6:55 ET and is live across all time zones.

The four-hour Opening Ceremony broadcast will be followed by five more consecutive hours of Olympic programming on NBC. It starts with a special two-hour TODAY at 11 a.m. ET and 8 a.m. PT, featuring Opening Ceremony reaction and athlete interviews.

That’s succeeded by NBC’s first-ever Olympic daytime show on an opening Friday of the Games at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT.

NBC’s primetime Opening Ceremony presentation is at 7:30 ET/4:30 PT, followed by an overnight replay.

“Following the unprecedented challenges presented by the global pandemic, the world will come together in Tokyo for what could be the most meaningful and anticipated Opening Ceremony ever,” Pete Bevacqua, Chairman, NBC Sports Group, said in a press release. “Given the magnitude of this event, we want to provide viewers with as many ways to connect to it as possible, live or in primetime.”

In all, it’s 18 total hours of Olympic programming on NBC in a 22-hour span to kick off the largest Olympics in history.

“We are delighted to offer live coverage of the Opening Ceremony for those who want immediacy, and, later in the day, build on NBC Olympics’ terrific primetime legacy with a full celebration of these much anticipated Tokyo Olympics, complete with expert analysis and enhanced coverage of Team USA,” said Molly Solomon, Executive Producer and President, NBC Olympics Production.

The Tokyo Games have a record 339 events with the first medals awarded on Saturday, July 24.

Non-medal competition starts Wednesday, July 21 with preliminary soccer and softball games that will be part of NBC Olympics’ comprehensive multi-platform coverage.

NBC Olympic Broadcast Schedule on July 23

Eastern Time

6:55-11 a.m. Live Opening Ceremony Coverage
11 a.m.-1 p.m. Special Edition of TODAY
1-4 p.m. Tokyo Olympics Daytime
7:30 p.m.-12 a.m. Primetime Opening Ceremony
12:35-5 a.m. Overnight Replay of Opening Ceremony
Pacific Time

3:55-8 a.m. Live Opening Ceremony Coverage
8-10 a.m. Special Edition of TODAY
10 a.m.-1 p.m. Tokyo Olympics Daytime
4:30-9 p.m. Primetime Opening Ceremony
9:10 p.m.-1:10 a.m. Opening Ceremony Primetime Encore
1:10-5 a.m. Overnight Replay of Opening Ceremony
I'm really hoping this comes together.

[GeneChing]

MARCH 21, 202111:40 PM UPDATED 9 HOURS AGO
International spectators to be barred from Olympics in Japan (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-idUSKBN2BC04K)
By Sakura Murakami

4 MIN READ

(This Mar 20 story corrects figure in second paragraph to 30,000 Paralympic tickets, not 300,000)

TOKYO (Reuters) - International spectators will not be allowed to enter Japan for this summer’s Olympic Games amid public concerns over coronavirus, organisers said on Saturday, crushing many fans’ hopes and setting the stage for a drastically scaled-back event.

Some 600,000 Olympic tickets purchased by overseas residents will be refunded, as will another 30,000 Paralympic tickets, Toshiro Muto, the chief executive of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, told a news conference.

He declined to say how much the refunds would cost.

The Olympic Games were postponed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the outbreak has chilled public opinion toward the event, both organisers and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga have vowed to press ahead with the Games, now scheduled to take place on July 23-Aug. 8, with the Paralympics on Aug. 24-Sept. 5.

The decision on international spectators will “ensure safe and secure Games for all participants and the Japanese public,” Tokyo 2020 organisers said in a statement following five-way talks that included the head of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, and the Tokyo governor.

“People who are involved in the Olympics in some way may be allowed to enter the country, whereas regular visitors will not be able to,” Tokyo 2020’s Muto said.

He said costs for hotel cancellations would not be covered. Organisers may also consider cutting the number of staff members who will participate in the Games.

Bach said he shared the disappointment of Olympic fans as well as the families and friends of athletes who had planned to travel to Tokyo.

“For this I’m truly sorry. We know that this is a great sacrifice for everybody. We have said from the very beginning of this pandemic that it will require sacrifices,” Bach said in a statement.

But he said safety had to come first, adding, “I know that our Japanese partners and friends did not reach this conclusion lightly”.

https://static.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20210322&t=2&i=1555706920&r=LYNXMPEH2L0E8
FILE PHOTO: A man looks at his mobile phone next to The Olympic rings in front of the Japan Olympics Museum in Tokyo, Japan, March 4, 2020. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov//File Photo

“Together with them, the IOC’s top priority was, is and remains to organise safe Olympic and Paralympic Games for everyone,” Bach said.

Media polls have shown that a majority of the Japanese public are wary about letting in international spectators to watch the Games as the country grapples with the tail-end of a third wave of the pandemic.

STRIPPED-DOWN GAMES
A stripped-down Games means the government will not get the tourism boom it had long counted on. Japan has grown increasingly reliant on foreign tourists, particularly from Asia, to bolster its weak domestic economy.

Like other countries, it has seen tourism unravel with the pandemic and its hotels and restaurants have been hit hard.

Saturday’s decision did not cover local spectators. Muto said organisers will decide next month on caps for spectators in venues.

“It’s very unfortunate,” Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said of the decision on international spectators, speaking to reporters after the meeting.

But she added that the conclusion was “unavoidable” given that the main priority for holding a successful Games would be the health of the athletes and the Japanese public.

Kyodo news service earlier reported that organisers were leaning towards barring overseas volunteers from helping at the Games.

Sources told Reuters earlier this month that the Japanese government had concluded it would not be able to allow spectators from abroad.

Reporting by Sakura Murakami, Editing by William Mallard, David Dolan and Frances Kerry
Bummer for the local businesses but good for the broadcasters, I suppose.

[GeneChing]

Tokyo Olympic Games 2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/apr/06/tokyo-olympics-north-korea-pulls-out-of-games-citing-coronavirus-fears?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1)
North Korea pulls out of Tokyo Olympics, citing coronavirus fears
With the Games just months away, the regime’s sports ministry says it wants to protect athletes from the ‘global health crisis’

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1417c9b6f69aaf947ae0a6044e5c2044aaa047f8/0_0_7923_4754/master/7923.jpg
North Korea will not attend the forthcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo, Pyongyang’s sports ministry said on Tuesday, citing the risks of coronavirus infection. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images
Helen Sullivan and agencies
@helenrsullivan
Tue 6 Apr 2021 03.12 EDT

North Korea’s sports ministry said on Tuesday that it will not participate in the Tokyo Olympics this year to protect its athletes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision was made at a meeting of North Korea’s Olympic committee, including its sports minister Kim Il guk, on 25 March the ministry said on its website, called Joson Sports. “The committee decided not to join the 32nd Olympics Games to protect athletes from the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus,” it said.

The meeting also discussed ways to develop professional sports technologies, earn medals at international competitions and promote public sports activities over the next five years, the ministry said.

North Korea has one of the world’s strictest quarantine regimes, despite the government’s denial that any cases have been detected in the country.

The measures have allowed the government to increase its control over daily life to levels similar to the famine years of the 1990s, according to analysts.

Outsiders doubt whether the country has escaped the pandemic entirely, given its poor health infrastructure and a porous border it shares with China, its economic lifeline.

Describing its anti-virus efforts as a “matter of national existence”, North Korea has severely limited cross-border traffic, banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and quarantined tens of thousands of people who have shown symptoms.

Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has previously said he expected to invite US president Joe Biden to the Olympics and was willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un or his powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong, if either attended the Games. Suga, however, did not say if he would invite either of them.

South Korea‘s Unification Ministry on Tuesday expressed regret at the North’s decision, saying it had hoped the Tokyo Olympics would provide an opportunity to improve inter-Korean relations, which have declined amid a stalemate in wider nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.

Japan’s Olympic minister, Tamayo Marukawa, said she was still confirming details and couldn’t immediately comment on the pullout decision.

North Korea sent 22 athletes to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, along with government officials, performance artists, journalists and a 230-member cheering group.

The contingent included Kim Yo-jong, a move that helped it initiate diplomacy with South Korea and the US. That diplomacy has stalled since and North Korea‘s decision to sit out the Tokyo Olympics is a setback for hopes to revive it.

The Olympics are hugely unpopular in Japan, with up to 80% of Japanese wanting the Games cancelled or postponed again. The games were originally scheduled to take place in 2020 but were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. This year, the government announced that it would ban overseas spectators.

With just over 100 days to go, Japanese health authorities are concerned that variants of the coronavirus are driving a nascent fourth wave.

The variants appear to be more infectious and may be resistant to vaccines, which are still not widely available in Japan. Osaka is the worst-affected city. Infections there hit fresh records last week, prompting the regional government to start targeted lockdown measures for one month from Monday.

A mutant Covid variant first discovered in Britain has taken hold in the Osaka region, spreading faster and filling up hospital beds with more serious cases than the original virus, according to Koji Wada, a government adviser on the pandemic.

“The fourth wave is going to be larger,” said Wada, a professor at Tokyo’s International University of Health and Welfare. “We need to start to discuss how we could utilise these targeted measures for the Tokyo area.”

Osaka city cancelled Olympic Torch relay events there, but the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has insisted Japan will carry out the Games as scheduled. Suga said on Sunday that measures employed in the Osaka area could be expanded to Tokyo and elsewhere if needed.

In response to the announcement from North Korea, a spokesperson for the Australian Olympic Committee told the Guardian it was “continuing its detailed preparations to send the Australian Olympic Team to the Tokyo Olympic Games” and that it had “full confidence” in the efforts of organisers “to deliver the Games with athlete safety as the highest priority”.

There were 249 new infections in Tokyo on Monday, still well below the peak of over 2,500 in January. In Osaka, the tally was 341, down from a record 666 cases on Saturday. Japan has confirmed a total of nearly nearly 490,000 infections since the start of the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. The death toll stands at 9,227.

threads
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

There's a vid behind the link



Woman Training for Olympics Becomes Target of Anti-Asian Rant at Orange County Park (https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/sakura-kokumai-orange-county-racist-video-olympics-karate/2569313/?fbclid=IwAR22b1SQ1gVA96AHvujp0ShJk9V2M_QSk7ziwY9e tfVPyh7myFm27-j3vac)
Sakura Kokumai, 28, is the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate, and is training for the summer games in Tokyo.
By Angie Crouch • Published 3 hours ago • Updated 3 hours ago

An Olympic hopeful from SoCal — the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate — posted a video of the man shouting at her as she trained in a park. Angie Crouch reports April 8, 2021.

An Asian American woman training for the Olympics' karate competition says she was threatened by a man yelling racial slurs at an Orange County Park, and is sharing the recorded video of the incident in order to spread awareness about growing harassment against Asian Americans.

Sakura Kokumai, 28, is the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate, and is training for the summer games in Tokyo.

She said she’s still in shock over what happened at Grijalva Park in the city of Orange last week.

“Nobody likes to be yelled at by a complete stranger," she said.

In a video she shared on Instagram, you can see a stranger berating her and threatening her as she worked out.

"Go home, stupid," can be heard. “I’ll (bleep) you up - I’ll (bleep) your husband up or boyfriend or whoever you’re talking to on the phone."

She responds with, "I haven’t done anything.”

"When somebody is just yelling at you that aggressively you do get your guard up a little bit - you do get worried," Kokumai said.

Kokumai is Japanese American, but she says the man yelled something about her being Chinese as he drove away.

"The only two words I picked up were 'Chinese' and 'sashimi' which have no connection at all," she said.

In an online summit with other Olympic athletes, U.S. gymnast Yul Moldauer revealed he too has been the victim of racial harassment.

“Last month I was driving and a lady cut me off. She yelled at me, 'go back to China.' For me my job is to represent this country so I take a lot of pride into it," Moldauer said.

The man in the Instagram video has not been identified and Kokumai wasn’t hurt.

She says while it’s heartbreaking to see a rise in attacks on Asian Americans, she hopes sharing her story will bring awareness.

“We all belong here and we don’t have to be afraid when we go out. But I encourage people to look out for one another," she said.

Threads
Stop-Asian-Hate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72003-Stop-Asian-Hate)
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
2020-Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

With 100 days until the Tokyo Olympics, Japan has vaccinated less than 1% of its population. That's a problem (https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/sport/japan-covid-tokyo-olympics-100-days-dst-intl-hnk/index.html)
By Blake Essig, Emiko Jozuka and Ben Westcott, CNN

Updated 5:28 AM ET, Wed April 14, 2021
Tokyo (CNN)When 2020 Tokyo Olympics volunteers have in recent weeks asked officials how they'll be protected from Covid-19, given the foreign athletes pouring into Japan for the event and the country's low vaccination rate, the answer has been simple.
They'll be given a small bottle of hand sanitizer and two masks each.
"They don't talk about vaccines, they don't even talk about us being tested," said German volunteer Barbara Holthus, who is director of Sophia University's German Institute for Japanese Studies, in Tokyo.
With 100 days to go until the Games, already postponed a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, questions remain over how Tokyo can hold a massive sporting event and keep volunteers, athletes, officials -- and the Japanese public -- safe from Covid-19.
That concern has been amplified by Japan's battle with a looming fourth wave. The country passed 500,000 total coronavirus cases on Saturday, and some prefectures are again tightening their Covid-19 restrictions as daily infections grow. Hideaki Oka, a professor at Saitama Medical University, said Japan may not be able to contain the latest wave before the Games begin on July 23.
While Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga reiterated Monday his pledge to secure 100 million vaccine doses by the end of June, so far Japan has only vaccinated about 1.1 million of its 126 million people -- less than 1% of the population. Only 0.4% have received two doses.
Holthus said supporting the Games was meant to be a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity. "But now it's just a really dangerous experience," she said.
In a statement to CNN, Tokyo 2020 organizers said they were preparing to hold "a safe and secure Games without presuming there will be a vaccine and even without vaccines."
"On the other hand, we hope that vaccines will be properly administered at home and abroad and that the infection will, therefore, be reduced as a whole," the statement said.
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210413231720-01-japan-olympics-coronavirus-0406-exlarge-169.jpg
A man wearing a protective mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walks near advertisement for Tokyo 2020 Olympics at an underpass Tuesday, April 6, in Tokyo.

Slow vaccine rollout
With a $25 billion Olympics to host, arguably no country in Asia had more incentive than Japan to get its Covid-19 cases under control and vaccinate its population.
Yet Japanese regulators were slow to approve Covid-19 vaccines, compared to other governments, taking more than two months to allow the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Its rollout did not begin until February, and senior citizens only began to receive their doses on April 12, according to Kyodo News.
Experts said part of the delay was due to official caution designed to avoid the vaccine skepticism that has damaged previous vaccination efforts in Japan. Either way, that approach has left Japan lagging other Asian nations, such as China, which has administered 171 million vaccinations, and India, which has given out 108 million doses.
"They say elderly citizens are supposed to have a vaccination by June, but in reality, even medical staff who is treating Covid hasn't got vaccinated yet," said Oka from Saitama Medical University, adding he didn't believe the June vaccination target would be met.
Oka said the government should prioritize vaccinating all athletes entering the country for the Games, but the Japanese government has resisted this approach, after media reports that Olympians would be prioritized sparked a social media backlash in Japan.
Beijing had offered to provide vaccines for all athletes in the 2020 Olympics but Tokyo turned down the offer, saying no Chinese-made options were yet authorized for use in Japan.
International spectators have been banned from the Games to try to lower the risk of Covid-19 spreading at the event. But more than 11,000 athletes from over 200 countries are expected to participate.
Without plans to vaccinate athletes, the tens of thousands of volunteers taking part stand little chance of protection.
Holthus said Tokyo 2020 President Hashimoto Seiko told volunteers during a Zoom call she was relying "on your smile" to make the Olympics a success -- a particularly jarring claim because they would all be wearing masks.
"(We were told) 'Your smile is going to make the Olympics exist' and you wonder, are you kidding me?" said Holthus, who is scheduled to volunteer as a ticket collector.
One volunteer, who attended an 80-minute lecture on infectious disease control for Games volunteers, said a top Japanese expert in infectious diseases told them they shouldn't count on being vaccinated ahead of the event.
"(He said) unless you are elderly there won't be enough time for ordinary people to get vaccinated," said the volunteer, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid being excluded from her role in the Olympics. She said she felt angry and scared after the presentation.
The volunteer, who had taken part in previous Olympics, said she was considering dropping out unless all volunteers were vaccinated. "Not doing so is showing reckless disregard for our lives, and the optimal safe environment that Japan as a host country is obligated to provide," she said.
Tokyo 2020 didn't respond to questions on the content of the presentation given to volunteers.

Questions over athletes
Even countries with almost no infections have struggled to hold major sporting events during the pandemic.
In January, some players arriving in Melbourne for the Australian Open tennis tournament complained on social media about the strict health screening measures they encountered. At one point, spectators were banned for several days amid a small Covid-19 outbreak in the city.
For Japan, where there were 2,112 new cases on Tuesday, it is going to be a bigger challenge.
International participants will need a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours before they travel to Japan, where they will be retested, according to the Tokyo 2020 Playbook released by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on February 21.
But according to the IOC document, athletes will not be required to quarantine for 14 days after arriving in Japan, unless they have breached the country's Covid-19 precautions or potentially been exposed to the virus.
During the Games, participants will be "tested for Covid-19 at different intervals," and all athletes and visitors will be assigned a "Covid-19 Liaison Officer."
International guests have been asked to only leave their accommodation to "go to official Games venues and limited additional locations," a list of which will be released in the second playbook, due to publish this month.
Hugs and high-fives are to be avoided and no public transport should be used. A face mask must be worn at all times.
Tokyo 2020 organizers did not respond to questions on how social distancing measures would be maintained at the Olympic village.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

An Olympic super-spreader event?
While athletes in the Olympic village will have all tested negative before arriving in Japan, they will inevitably come in contact with tens of thousands of untested volunteers who will be shuttling between the Olympic venues and their homes.
The Tokyo 2020 website said volunteers should take public transport to Olympic venues when they are volunteering. In Tokyo on Tuesday there were 510 new confirmed cases of Covid-19.
In a statement to CNN, Tokyo 2020 said it had published a leaflet informing volunteers about Covid-19 countermeasures, including mask wearing, washing hands and keeping a safe distance from others.
In response to a question on whether any Tokyo 2020 events would be postponed due to Covid, the statement said that the situation was "changing every moment."
Holthus said in addition to the hand sanitizer and two face masks, Games officials had offered volunteers a "health condition diary" in which they could record their own health status.
"It's going to be concentrated groups of people from all over the world, mixing together. What if there is a cluster that develops in one of the Olympic venues? What if it comes from one of us?" she said.
Oka, the Saitama Medical University professor, shared the volunteers' concerns, saying the Games could enable the spread of dangerous Covid-19 variants not only through Japan, but around the world.
Oka said he was also concerned Japan's already stretched hospital system wouldn't be able to cope if there was a sudden influx of athletes and volunteers infected with the virus. "As an infectious disease specialist, I cannot approve of holding the Games in a situation where not enough vaccinations has been made and enough countermeasures put in place," he said.
In a statement to CNN, the Tokyo 2020 organizing body said it had "high hopes" the Covid-19 situation in Japan would improve ahead of the Olympics. "We will continue to work closely with these parties as we prepare to deliver a safe and secure Games this summer," the statement said.
Olympics volunteer Philbert Ono said he trusted the government and the IOC to keep the athletes and volunteers safe.
"The Japanese, they love to witness history. And you know this Olympics is very, very much a historical Olympics ... this is going to be a very different Olympics. And that's another thing I'm looking forward to," he said. "I just want to see how they do it."
But Holthus said she didn't believe the Games should go ahead with the current state of preparation, which was a "recipe for a super spreader event."
"We can't even yet imagine how bad it could be," she said. "But the damage will be done once the Games are being held. There's no turning that back once everybody flies in."



threads
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

More on Sakura Kokumai (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics&p=1320699#post1320699)


Police Arrest Man Accused of Berating Team USA Karate Athlete Training at Park for Olympics (https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/arrest-anti-asian-crime-orange-county-park-olympian-sakura-kokumai/2576706/?fbclid=IwAR0tHJpzYE6xhQGIIcj988vgMRqIcjtyyA7ERI-937Z3drbdySpeQkh4C8Q)
Sakura Kokumai, who qualified for this summer’s Olympics in karate, was training at an Orange County park when a stranger began yelling at her and making threats.
By Staff Reports • Published April 19, 2021 • Updated 6 hours ago


An Olympic hopeful from SoCal — the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate — posted a video of the man shouting at her as she trained in a park. Angie Crouch reports April 8, 2021.

A man accused of assaulting a Southern California Asian couple and threatening a U.S. Olympian who was training at an Orange County park has been arrested.

Michael Vivona, 25, of Corona was arrested Sunday on suspicion of elder abuse and committing a hate crime in connection with an assault on a Korean American couple. He also was arrested in the April 1 encounter with 28-year-old Sakura Kokumai, who qualified for this summer’s Olympics in karate.

Details about the arrest were not immediately available. It was not immediately clear whether the suspect has an attorney.

Kokumai, a seven-time national champion, shared video of the encounter with a man who yelled at her in Grijalva Park in the city of Orange. In video shared on Instagram, the man can be seen berating her as she works out at the public park.


It makes me emotional just to think about it because at the time I did feel that I was alone.

Sakura Kokumai
“Go home stupid,” the man can be heard saying. “I’ll f— you up. I’ll f— your husband up or boyfriend or whoever you’re talking to on the phone.”

Kokumai is Japanese American, but she said the man yelled something about her being Chinese as he drove away.

“The only two words I picked up were ‘Chinese’ and ’sashimi,’ which have no connection at all,” Kokumai told NBCLA. “Nobody likes to be yelled at by a complete stranger.”

Kokumai was at the park to go for a jog as she prepares to represent the United States in front of the world at the Olympics in Tokyo.

Kokumai said she shared the video to spread awareness about harassment against Asian Americans.

“I want everybody to know, especially in the AAPI community, that you’re not alone,” Kokumai told NBC News. “I think it’s really important to have compassion, share love and look out for one another.

“It makes me emotional just to think about it because at the time I did feel that I was alone."

In the aftermath, Kokumai said she received heartwarming messages of support.

“They made me feel that I do belong here,” Kokumai said.

Details about the other crime for which the suspect was arrested were not immediately available.

Threads
Stop-Asian-Hate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72003-Stop-Asian-Hate)
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
2020-Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

Apr 20, 2021,09:03pm EDT|128 views
China Sportswear Billionaires Cut Anta Stake In Sale Nearing $1.5 Billion
Russell Flannery
Forbes Staff
Asia
https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/607f78f5f0cb01b01dd42d0e/960x0.jpg?fit=scale
Pedestrians walk past an Anta Sports Products store in Shanghai last month. Photographer: Qilai ... [+] © 2021 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP
Only a few years ago, 2021 and 2022 seemed like a particularly promising years for sportswear sales in China. The planned Summer Olympics in Japan were expected to attract viewership in the mainland; next year’s Winter Olympics are scheduled for Beijing and interest in winter sports has been on the rise.

Amid concerns that Japan’s games won’t be held this year and questions whether all countries will turn out for next year’s winter games, the controlling shareholders of China’s biggest sportswear company said in a filing today that would lower their stake in the business.

Anta International, whose owners include billionaire chairman Ding Shizhong and vice chairman Ding Shijia, said they would sell 88 million shares, or about a 3.3% stake in Hong Kong-listed Anta Sports Products, at a price of HK$131.48 a share, generating nearly $1.5 billion. Anta Holdings’ stake will fall to 47.6% after the sale, compared with 50.8% before. The company didn’t give a reason for the sale. Anta Sports closed at HK$142.20 yesterday.

Anta’s shares have gained nearly 80% in the past year as China’s economy recovered from Covid. Shares in local brands such as Anta, Xtep, Li Ning and 361, recently got a further boost after a Nike statement last month expressing concern about alleged forced labor practices in the country’s Xinjiang region generated backlash and boycott calls in China’s social media.

Anta, a 2022 Olympics sponsor, led an investment group that paid $5 billion to purchase Nordic sportswear success Amer Sports in 2019. Amer’s globally well-known brands include Atomic ski equipment, Salomon ski boots and Wilson tennis rackets, among others. Anta’s partners included Tencent, FountainVest Partners and U.S. billionaire Chip Wilson, the founder of Lululemon sports apparel.

At home, Anta has also long used NBA endorsements from the likes of Klay Thompson to help sales. The company was founded in 1991, and went public in Hong Kong in 2007 at HK$5.28 a share, creating a hefty return for early investors.

Ding Shizhong is worth $11 billion on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List today; younger brother Ding Shijia is worth $10.8 billion. Mainland China is second only to the United States as home to the world’s largest number of billionaires.

- Follow me @rflannerychina
Russell Flannery
I'm a senior editor and the Shanghai bureau chief of Forbes magazine. Now in my 20th year at Forbes, I compile the Forbes China Rich List. I was previously a correspondent for Bloomberg News in Taipei and Shanghai and for the Asian Wall Street Journal in Taipei. I'm a Massachusetts native, fluent Mandarin speaker, and hold degrees from the University of Vermont and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

threads
Athleisure (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70811-Athleisure)
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

MAY 11, 20218:28 PMUPDATED 3 HOURS AGO
US athletics team cancels pre-Olympics camp in Japan-local government (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-japan-idUSKBN2CT091)
By Eimi Yamamitsu, Sakura Murakami

5 MIN READ

TOKYO (Reuters) -The United States’ track and field team has cancelled its pre-Olympics training camp in Japan out of concerns for safety amid the COVID-19 pandemic, local authorities announced on Wednesday, raising more questions about the holding of the Games.

https://static.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20210512&t=2&i=1561818553&r=LYNXMPEH4B0HT
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games that have been postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, is seen through signboards, at Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office building in Tokyo, Japan January 22, 2021. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo
The team was set to train in Chiba, the prefecture neighbouring Tokyo, leading up to the summer Games, but cancelled “out of concerns for their athletes’ safety”, according to a statement from the Chiba administration.

There was no immediate comment from USA Track and Field.

“It is a shame they have decided to cancel, but I believe they made the best decision possible in the current situation,” Chiba governor Toshihito Kumagai said in the statement.

With less than three months to go before the Games begin on July 23, Japan is battling a surge in coronavirus infections, and a majority of the population wants them cancelled or postponed for a second time.

Public concerns have also caused angst among sponsors, with a top executive of one, Toyota Motor Corp, saying company officials felt “conflicted” over the desire to see the Olympics succeed and public concerns about holding the event during a pandemic. “As sponsors, it breaks our heart to see public discontent aimed at athletes,” the automaker’s operating officer, Jun Nagata, told an earnings briefing on Wednesday.

“To be honest, we are conflicted every day over what the best course of action is.”

Criticism has also been levelled at athletes, with some social media users calling on them to step down from competing.

“I personally can’t stand that the criticism and calls to cancel or boycott the Olympics are being aimed at the athletes themselves,” said Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee president Seiko Hashimoto at a news conference held on Wednesday evening.

“It strengthens my resolve to ensure we have the proper measures in place to make the Olympics safe for athletes,” she added.

SLOW VACCINATIONS To forestall a virus outbreak during the event, Japan is preparing to offer vaccinations to about 2,500 Olympic and Paralympic athletes and support staff, using donated shots.

However, just 2.6% of the population has been vaccinated, and reports last month of priority for athletes spurred criticism on social media amid public anger over the slow pace of the inoculation campaign.

“Our officials are saying we’ll make sure we don’t cause trouble for the overall population,” said Miho Kuroda of the Japan Paralympic Committee.

The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said vaccinations could start as early as June, but officials said the timing and details, such as who would give the inoculations, remain unclear.

Last week, Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE said they would donate vaccine doses to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to help inoculate athletes and their delegations to both Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Japan has only approved the Pfizer vaccine, though approval for others is imminent. Vaccinations have also been slowed by supply issues and rules that only doctors or nurses can give the shots, although dentists received permission last month.

The IOC, organisers in Japan and the government have repeatedly vowed to hold the Games as scheduled until Aug. 8, despite rampant criticism.

The governor of Ibaraki prefecture, which is to host some Olympic soccer events, said a further postponement or outright cancellation should be considered if the pandemic worsened.

“I don’t think we can gain the understanding of the international community, let alone Japan, if we were to host the Olympics in the midst of a medical collapse,” Governor Kazuhiko Ooigawa told reporters on Tuesday.

The New York Times newspaper featured an opinion piece on Tuesday titled, “A sports event shouldn’t be a superspreader”, adding to the calls for cancellation.

“It’s time to listen to science and halt the dangerous charade,” the author, political scientist and former soccer player, Jules Boykoff, said.

Japan has escaped the worst of the pandemic, but 11,000 people have died and the medical system has been severely stretched by the latest surge, with 925 new infections on Tuesday in Tokyo, the capital.

Reporting by Elaine Lies, Eimi Yamamitsu, Sakura Murakami and Chang-ran Kim; Writing by Elaine Lies and Sakura Murakami; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Raju Gopalakrishnan, William Maclean

threads
2020-Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

Japan
Tokyo Olympics: more than 80% of Japanese oppose hosting Games – poll (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/17/tokyo-olympics-more-than-80-of-japanese-oppose-hosting-games-poll?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1)
Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency on Friday as the nation battles a fourth wave of Covid infections

Passersby wearing protective face masks walk near a countdown clock of Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games that have been postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus disease

More than 80% of Japanese people oppose hosting the Olympics this year, a poll published on Monday showed, with just under 10 weeks until the Tokyo Games.

The latest survey comes after Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency on Friday as the nation battles a fourth wave of virus infections.

The surge has put pressure on the country’s healthcare system, with medical professionals repeatedly warning about shortages and burnout.

The weekend survey by the Asahi Shimbun daily found 43% of respondents want the Games cancelled, and 40% want a further postponement.

Those figures are up from 35% who backed cancellation in a survey by the paper a month ago, and 34% who wanted a further delay.

Only 14% support holding the Games this summer as scheduled, down from 28%, according to the poll of 1,527 replies from 3,191 telephone calls.

If the Games do go ahead, 59% of respondents said they want no spectators, with 33% backing lower fan numbers and 3% a regular capacity Games.

For months, polling has found a majority in Japan oppose holding the Games this summer. A separate poll by Kyodo News published on Sunday showed 59.7% of respondents back cancellation, though further postponement was not listed as an option.

Olympic organisers says tough anti-virus measures, including regular testing of athletes and a ban on overseas fans, will keep the Games safe. But the Kyodo poll found 87.7% of respondents worry that an influx of athletes and staff members from abroad may spread the virus.

Japan has seen a smaller virus outbreak than many countries, with fewer than 11,500 deaths so far. But the government has come under pressure for a comparatively slow vaccine rollout.

The Kyodo poll found 85% of respondents considered the rollout slow, with 71.5 percent unhappy with the government’s handling of the pandemic.



threads
2020-Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

...not going to replace it with '2021' yet. We'll just wait and see.


MAY 20, 20214:13 PM UPDATED 13 HOURS AGO
Olympics-Most Japan firms say Games should be cancelled or postponed (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-japan-companies-poll-idUSKCN2D12SZ)
By Tetsushi Kajimoto

3 MIN READ


TOKYO (Reuters) -Nearly 70% of Japanese firms want the Tokyo Olympics either cancelled or postponed, a Reuters survey found, underscoring concerns that the Games will increase coronavirus infections at a time when the medical system is under heavy strain.

https://static.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20210521&t=2&i=1562898736&r=LYNXNPEH4J1GY&w=1024
FILE PHOTO: The giant Olympic rings are seen behind Japan's national flag amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at the waterfront area at Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo, Japan August 6, 2020. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
With just nine weeks to go before the Games, states of emergency have been imposed in much of Japan until the end of the month to counter a spike in infections that has resulted in a shortage of medical staff and hospital beds in some areas.

The country’s vaccination programme has also been particularly slow, with just 4% of the population inoculated, the lowest rate among the Group of Seven nations.

The Corporate Survey, conducted May 6-17, showed 37% of firms were in favour of cancellation, while 32% want a postponement.

In particular, those calling for a cancellation have increased from February when the same questions were asked in the monthly survey. Then, 29% were keen on a cancellation while 36% favoured a delay.

“There’s no way that the Olympics can go ahead under the current circumstances,” a manager at a metals firm wrote in the survey.

“Nothing the government does seems to be well-planned. All it appears to be doing is spreading anxiety.”

The results of the survey are roughly in line with public opinion polls.

Many Tokyo residents say, however, they are conflicted about holding the Games.

“Variant strains could enter, creating a terrible situation,” said Keiko Yamamura, a 58-year old yoga instructor. “But when I think of the athletes who have worked so hard, I’d like to let them do it.”

The government and International Olympic Committee have repeatedly said the Games will go ahead. About 70% of the 10,500 athletes due to attend have already qualified.

If the Games, which have already been postponed by a year, were cancelled, a quarter of the firms expect big economic losses. But nearly 60% said economic losses would be limited while another 13% said they expect economic losses to be relatively small.

The survey, conducted for Reuters by Nikkei Research, canvassed some 480 large and midsize non-financial companies, of which about 230 answered questions on the Olympics. Respondents participate in the survey on condition of anonymity.

Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Edwina Gibbs

threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[Jimbo]

I find it extremely bizarre that the Japanese government spent these past several months lollygagging around the issue of vaccinations. Usually, the Japanese are usually highly organized and up on things. You’d think with Japan scheduled to hold the Olympics they would have had their act together, instead of twiddling their thumbs. It’s a stupid situation that didn’t have to be this way. However, I do understand the worry many there have of new strains of the virus being brought into the country.

[GeneChing]

I hope you get a chance to compete.


SAKURA KOKUMAI OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED AS FIRST U.S. KARATE OLYMPIAN (https://www.teamusa.org/News/2021/May/25/Sakura-Kokumai-Officially-Confirmed-As-First-US-Karate-Olympian)
By Todd Kortemeier | May 25, 2021, 3:36 p.m. (ET)

https://www.teamusa.org/-/media/TeamUSA/Karate/Kokumai_Sakura/Kokumai_Sakura_112021_1440x810_4.png
Sakura Kokumai poses for a portrait during the Team USA Tokyo 2020 Olympic shoot on Nov. 22, 2019 in West Hollywood, Calif.

Sakura Kokumai first saw her name appear alongside the word “Olympian” back in March 2020. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened, the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 were postponed, the karate Olympic qualifying system was revised and athletes had to wait until Tuesday to have their Olympic fates confirmed.

Kokumai found herself in the same spot — among the first 40 karate athletes officially qualified for the Games. Kokumai ranks as the fourth kata athlete in the world, securing her place. She is the only one among the 40 from Team USA.

It’s been a long wait for both Kokumai and the sport of karate, as both will be making their Olympic debuts in Tokyo. The discipline of kata that Kokumai practices is based on progressing through a series of movements. Athletes receive scores from judges on their technical execution.

Kokumai, 28, first took up the sport at the age of 7 in her native Hawaii. Growing up, she lived in both Hawaii and Japan, where her parents are originally from. Kokumai now lives in San Diego.

Kokumai committed to the kata discipline at the age of 16, and by 2012 won her first world championships medal. A seven-time national champion at the senior level, Kokumai has been a member of the national team since 2007. She owns six senior Pan American championships and in 2019 captured the gold medal in individual kata at the Pan American Games. She’ll hope to bring home a medal of a similar color from Tokyo.

“Karate has been a part of my life for a long time now,” she told TeamUSA.org in September. “It may be new to the Olympics, but there are so many karate practitioners around the world, and I think that people who practice karate have a relationship with the sport that’s very personal. I’m hoping the Olympics will allow people to see what we do and why we do what we do.”


Todd Kortemeier
Todd Kortemeier is a sportswriter, editor and children’s book author from Minneapolis. He is a contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.

Threads
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
2020-Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

May 31, 2021
9:28 PM PDT
Sports
As Japan loses training camps, Olympics buzz fades (https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/olympics-japan-loses-training-camps-olympics-buzz-fades-2021-06-01/)
Tetsushi KajimotoDaniel Leussink

4 minute read
https://www.reuters.com/resizer/8qNihEDrDwFHJh2T8PfG3Nkmcoc=/1200x0/filters:quality(80)/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/TREPFN3B6FJITKT757WS6FXHIM.jpg
A visitor and the Olympic Rings monument cast shadows on the ground outside the Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) headquarters near the National Stadium, the main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games that have been postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Tokyo, Japan May 30, 2021. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the Japanese city of Kamo spent 70 million yen ($640,000) on horizontal bars, gymnastic mats and other upgrades to training facilities for 42 Russian gymnasts and coaches who now won’t be coming.

The team scrapped plans for pre-Olympics training in Japan because of the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic, local officials said. Officials in the northwestern city of 25,000 say they regret the lost opportunity to host the team, even more than the money spent.

The Games, now less than eight weeks away after being delayed by a year, have been upended by COVID-19. Foreign spectators will not be allowed, and more than 100 municipalities have cancelled plans to host overseas teams.

"Local kids who could be future star gymnasts were disappointed to miss the opportunity to meet the Russian gymnasts," Kamo official Hirokazu Suzuki told Reuters.

Although there is little Olympic buzz in host city Tokyo, which is under a state of emergency because of the pandemic, in smaller places like Kamo, which had been planning the camp since 2019, the disappointment is perhaps more palpable.

Most of the cancellations so far have been in the 500 or so municipalities involved in the Olympics "host town" programme, in which foreign teams base their pre-Games training in Japanese facilities.

In some cases, such as Australia's judo team, the teams pulled out over safety concerns. In others, such as a delegation from Cuba set to stay in Higashimatsuyama city north of Tokyo, the municipalities decided not to host.

Organisers say the Games will be held safely. Several opinion polls have shown most Japanese people want the event to be cancelled or postponed again.

The national government earmarked 13 billion yen for municipalities to host training camps while imposing coronavirus measures, officials said.

Municipalities apart from Tokyo were expected to see a boost of about $110 billion through 2030 from the Games, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said in a March 2017 estimate.

"Training camps will give a huge impulse to the economies of towns and cities where they are held, but that is being lost," said Katsuhiro Miyamoto, an emeritus professor of economics at Kansai University who studies the economic impact of the Olympics.

SPORTS EXCHANGE

Officials in Narita, east of Tokyo, were caught by surprise when the United States' track and field team informed them it had decided to pull out of planned a training camp.

About 120 athletes and staff, including star sprinter Justin Gatlin, were set to come for the camp, said Kentaro Abe, a municipal official in charge of host town projects.

Narita's sports relationship with the United States started in 2015, when it hosted the U.S. training camp before the world athletics championships in Beijing.

"It doesn't mean that our efforts to promote sport exchange between Japan and the United States came to nothing," Abe told Reuters, adding that city would look to continue the relationship.

In the central city of Toyota, home to the carmaker and Olympic sponsor Toyota Motor Corp, Canadian swimmers and coaches pulled out of pre-Olympics training scheduled to be held over about three weeks in July.

Such cancellations could add to the pain for towns and regions that are already smarting from a drop-off in tourism.

At her hotel in western Izumisano city, Eriko Tsujino worries she could lose about 60 bookings from Mongolian and Ugandan national teams if the athletes ditch plans to train in Japan.

"If they were to cancel at the last minute, it would cause a huge loss," she told Reuters, saying the bookings had still not been confirmed because of the state of emergency.

After the Russians cancelled their camp in Kamo, officials there decided at the last minute to host a much smaller Portuguese delegation of one female artistic gymnast and two accompanying staff, Suzuki said.

But the city also sought to keep friendly relations with the Russian gymnasts, asking kids and other locals to show them support with making video messages and letters.

($1 = 109.8100 yen)


threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

Tokyo Olympic Games 2020
Tokyo Olympics athletes warned not to use 160,000 free condoms (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jun/18/tokyo-2020-olympic-athletes-160000-free-condoms?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1)
Organisers say condoms are souvenirs to take home
Competitors must ‘avoid unnecessary forms’ of contact
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f8f2d590bb5b4a5434818bbb4424f6650b346177/0_227_4777_2868/master/4777.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&
In 2016, Olympic athletes were openly encouraged to make use of free condoms in Rio - but Tokyo 2020 is warning athletes to take them home instead. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Fri 18 Jun 2021 06.02 EDT

The organisers of the 2020 Olympics have repeatedly vowed to put on a “safe and secure” Games during the coronavirus pandemic. But safe sex – or anything approaching intimacy for that matter – will be forbidden for athletes competing in Tokyo.

The International Olympic Committee this week repeated demands that residents of the Olympic village must observe social distancing guidelines to prevent an outbreak of Covid-19, threatening rule-breakers with a range of penalties, including fines, disqualification or even deportation.

Athletes, according to the public health measures outlined in the latest Olympic playbook, must “avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact”.

That has left Japanese organisers red-faced after questions were raised about the fate of 160,000 condoms that, in keeping with Olympic tradition, are due to be handed out in the village this summer.

Hundreds of thousands of free condoms have been distributed since Seoul 1988 to encourage safe sex during the unofficial Olympic sport of bed-hopping among athletes from over 200 countries who spend weeks living in close quarters. However, if the 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes observe Covid-19 rules to the letter during their stay in Tokyo, this year’s consignment will go unused.

The mixed messaging has baffled observers, including the celebrated Japanese mountaineer, Ken Noguchi, who said handing out prophylactics while imploring their owners to keep them under wraps was “something I just can’t comprehend”.

Games organisers have belatedly spun the anomaly into a safe sex message. The condoms are not intended for use in the athletes’ village, they said. Instead, they are meant to be taken home and used to raise awareness of HIV and Aids.

Four Japanese manufacturers had been banking on the Games to market their speciality – ultra-thin condoms made of polyurethane that are said to heighten the pleasure of safe sex.

But, according to Agence France-Presse, Games requirements mean they are only permitted to distribute thicker, latex-based versions, which some have described as offering an inferior experience.

“When I learned about the requirement, I thought, ‘Oh my god … can that be right?’” an industry source told AFP. “We had really counted on being able to offer these ultra-thin ones.”

While the IOC has said up to 80% of prospective Olympic and Paralympic village residents will be fully vaccinated by the time the Tokyo Games open on 23 July, they will spend much of their time there a safe distance from their fellow residents.

Organisers were originally planning to provide meals in vast dining halls, but are now encouraging athletes to eat – and sleep – alone.

threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)
Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

Tokyo Olympic Games 2020
Tokyo Olympics athletes warned not to use 160,000 free condoms (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jun/18/tokyo-2020-olympic-athletes-160000-free-condoms?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1)
Organisers say condoms are souvenirs to take home
Competitors must ‘avoid unnecessary forms’ of contact
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f8f2d590bb5b4a5434818bbb4424f6650b346177/0_227_4777_2868/master/4777.jpg
In 2016, Olympic athletes were openly encouraged to make use of free condoms in Rio - but Tokyo 2020 is warning athletes to take them home instead. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Fri 18 Jun 2021 06.02 EDT

The organisers of the 2020 Olympics have repeatedly vowed to put on a “safe and secure” Games during the coronavirus pandemic. But safe sex – or anything approaching intimacy for that matter – will be forbidden for athletes competing in Tokyo.

The International Olympic Committee this week repeated demands that residents of the Olympic village must observe social distancing guidelines to prevent an outbreak of Covid-19, threatening rule-breakers with a range of penalties, including fines, disqualification or even deportation.

Athletes, according to the public health measures outlined in the latest Olympic playbook, must “avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact”.

That has left Japanese organisers red-faced after questions were raised about the fate of 160,000 condoms that, in keeping with Olympic tradition, are due to be handed out in the village this summer.

Hundreds of thousands of free condoms have been distributed since Seoul 1988 to encourage safe sex during the unofficial Olympic sport of bed-hopping among athletes from over 200 countries who spend weeks living in close quarters. However, if the 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes observe Covid-19 rules to the letter during their stay in Tokyo, this year’s consignment will go unused.

The mixed messaging has baffled observers, including the celebrated Japanese mountaineer, Ken Noguchi, who said handing out prophylactics while imploring their owners to keep them under wraps was “something I just can’t comprehend”.

Games organisers have belatedly spun the anomaly into a safe sex message. The condoms are not intended for use in the athletes’ village, they said. Instead, they are meant to be taken home and used to raise awareness of HIV and Aids.

Four Japanese manufacturers had been banking on the Games to market their speciality – ultra-thin condoms made of polyurethane that are said to heighten the pleasure of safe sex.

But, according to Agence France-Presse, Games requirements mean they are only permitted to distribute thicker, latex-based versions, which some have described as offering an inferior experience.

“When I learned about the requirement, I thought, ‘Oh my god … can that be right?’” an industry source told AFP. “We had really counted on being able to offer these ultra-thin ones.”

While the IOC has said up to 80% of prospective Olympic and Paralympic village residents will be fully vaccinated by the time the Tokyo Games open on 23 July, they will spend much of their time there a safe distance from their fellow residents.

Organisers were originally planning to provide meals in vast dining halls, but are now encouraging athletes to eat – and sleep – alone.

threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)
Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

https://www.teamusa.org/-/media/USA_Karate/Logos/Kicker-Logo/USA-Karate-Sport-Logo-300x375.jpg

USA KARATE ANNOUNCES DELEGATION FOR OLYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020 (https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Karate/Features/2021/June/29/USA-Karate-Announces-Delegation-for-Olympic-Games-Tokyo-2020)
June 29, 2021, 4:02 p.m. (ET)

USA Karate announced today the full U.S. delegation for the upcoming Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

Karate is one of five sports added to the Olympic program and making its debut this summer at the Games. The sport will feature two separate events: kata, which is a solo form of karate, and kumite which focuses more on sparring.

Representing Team USA’s first ever Olympic Karate team will be Sakura Kokumai (Los Angeles, CA), Ariel Torres (Miami, FL), and Brian Irr (Plano, TX). Athlete qualification pending United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee approval.

Sakura Kokumai qualified in the first phase of qualification, securing her Olympic spot by ranking top four in the world in the female kata division. Kokumai selected Brian Mertel to be her on-site coach at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Ariel Torres punched his ticket to Tokyo when he won gold at the World Karate Federation Olympic Qualification Tournament in Paris; confirming his status as a favorite in the male kata division. Javier Mantilla was chosen as Torres’ coach for his Olympic debut.

Brian Irr is the third member of the USA Karate Olympic team, qualifying as the continental representation from the Pan-American Karate Federation’s continental games. He will be competing in the +75 male kumite category. Irr invited coach Brody Burns to sit in his chair.

The USA Karate team will be guided by Team Leader, Elizabeth Sottile; and CEO/NGB Representative Phil Hampel during these Olympic Games.

Other USA Karate delegation members include Tom Scott, athlete training partner; Jose Fraguas, Press Officer; Nicole Clinton, Athletic Trainer; Jessica Bartley, Sport Psychologist; Maile Chinen, Venue Coordinator; and Fariba Madani, Referee.

Karate competition will take place at the Nippon Budokan, the iconic Japanese martial arts venue, on August 5-7, 2021. USA karate athletes will be competing each day of competition: Kokumai on August 5, Torres on August 6, and Irr on the 7th.

Threads
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
2020-Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

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Karate-After long battle, karate gets long-awaited chance on biggest stage (https://whbl.com/2021/06/29/karate-after-long-battle-karate-gets-long-awaited-chance-on-biggest-stage/)
By Syndicated Content
Jun 29, 2021 | 8:10 PM
By Chang-Ran Kim

TOKYO (Reuters) – Karate has fought a long, hard battle to earn its place as an Olympic sport.

Despite its 100 million practitioners worldwide, a solid place in popular culture and a rich history that some say can be traced back to the 15th century, the Japanese martial art’s bid to join the Olympics had been rejected three times, including, initially, for Tokyo 2020.

It was only thanks to the provision under the “Olympic Agenda 2020” reform blueprint adopted in 2014 that Games hosts were allowed to propose a number of sports and karate was granted a second shot.

Lobbied by then-chief cabinet secretary and current prime minister Yoshihide Suga, karate officially won its place two years later to join fellow Asian martial arts judo and taekwondo on the big stage in Tokyo.

Unfortunately for Japan’s karate federation, however, entering the Olympic sphere also exposed the rampant bullying of one of its leading athletes by a senior federation member in a scandal that sent shockwaves through the local karate world.

With just four months to go until karate’s debut at the Games, Japan Karatedo Federation (JKF) technical director Masao Kagawa was forced to resign when karateka Ayumi Uekusa blew the whistle – through the Olympics hot-line – on his abuses and unsanctioned use of a bamboo stick during training that caused her a serious eye injury.

The federation quickly dismissed Kagawa as head of the sport’s “Player Strengthening Committee” and replaced him with a popular former karate champion, Rika Usami, known as “the queen of kata”.

With the scandal behind it, karate will be looking to Tokyo 2020 to demonstrate why it deserves to be a core Olympic sport.

Karate has been ruled out for Paris 2024, though it will have a place at the postponed Youth Olympics in Dakar 2026 following a debut at the 2018 youth event in Buenos Aires.

In the “kata” category, in which athletes demonstrate offensive and defensive techniques against a virtual opponent, Japan’s Ryo Kiyuna is a favourite to win what would be the first gold medal for his native Okinawa prefecture, the birthplace of karate.

For female kata, a close contest is expected between Spanish world champion Sandra Sanchez and Japan’s Kiyou Shimizu after their memorable tie-breaker match at the sport’s top event in 2019.

The “kumite” sparring category will involve 60 athletes in three weight categories each for men and women, with France’s Steve Dacosta, Azerbaijan’s Rafael Aghayev, China’s Xiaoyan Yin and Turkey’s Serap Ozcelik Arapoglu among those to watch.

(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim, editing by Ed Osmond)


Threads
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
2020-Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Busted-Martial-Artists (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48947-Busted-Martial-Artists)

[GeneChing]

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On Guard: Curtis McDowald Is Fighting His Way to the Top of the Fencing World (https://www.gq.com/story/curtis-mcdowald-olympic-fencing-profile)
The 25-year-old Olympian is an electric presence in competition—and dead set on shaking up a stodgy, conservative sport outside of it.
BY BRADFORD WILLIAM DAVIS

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANA SCRUGGS

July 6, 2021

New York’s Fencer’s Club is giving country club, with all that entails. The brand-new midtown Manhattan facility has blindingly white walls and pristine rows of lockers in plain view of the padded floors where practice takes place. A discreet dumbbell rack sits outside the glass windows of a large conference room, just in case you need to take a work call between your drop sets. And maybe it’s just the cloth mask I’m wearing, but for a gym that hosts routine Olympic mini-camps ahead of the Tokyo Games, the place smells neutral. Maybe even...pleasant?

Curtis McDowald, the first-time Olympic fencer, confirms my suspicion—that something is just a little off at his training grounds. “A lot of these characters, they want the club to be like Planet Fitness,” he says in between tune-up bouts. “This the Fencer’s Club? Or the Planet Fitness club?”

McDowald brings the grit, passion, and personality the rest of the joint misses. The lithe six-footer dominates not only within the strip—the narrow rectangular space where fencers battle—but well beyond it, overwhelming the club and the sport with his presence. He’s the type of dude who’ll bet his Rolex on Instagram before an Olympic qualifier against a favored opponent, just in case the stakes weren’t already high enough. (Curtis won the match; his opponent, Marco Fischera, declined to take the bet.) Or to start a cryptocurrency—let him know if you want in on $CURT.

But right now, the 25-year-old is mowing down sparring partners, the latest a recent Northwestern standout named Pauline Hamilton, then afterward explaining exactly what he’s doing.

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There are three types of fencing, each defined by its blade: foil, sabre, and Curtis’ discipline, épée. The longest and heaviest of the three blades, épée fencing also distinguishes between the others by allowing fencers to use the tip of their weapon to make contact with any part of their opponent’s body to score a point. Because your entire body is a target instead of just the torso (foil) or upper half above the waist (sabre), épeé emphasizes a particularly methodical, harnessed approach to offense, where cunning must be married to raw athleticism, lest you leave yourself exposed.

“She's making a fake attack, and I'm just, kind of like, pretending it scares me. I'm like, Oh look!" Curtis says. “You know, in martial arts, the game of it…is deception. So if I make you believe that you're doing something correct, and you find out at the end result, you're wrong, you've been deceived.”

“You have to assume that...OK, if you didn't create the trap, that I made a trap for you.”

Beyond the strategizing—he counts The Art of War as one of the most important books in his development—he’s also performing, clowning his opponents out of their protective vests. Trash talk is followed by pep talk—he’s a mentor to many of the younger fencers, especially the Black ones—then more trash talk for the rematch. Fencer’s Club isn’t home, but he’s conquering it anyway.

Towards the end of his bout with Pauline, Curtis stretches his arms completely out of his stance, daring his opponent to thrust at him—the fencer’s equivalent, say, of a matador waving his bright red flag at a charging bull.

Pauline tries her best. Curtis parries, slashes back, and scores the point.

Then, he rips off his protective helmet and lets out a roar that resounds in every pocket of the club—the kind of noise that might make Curtis the most exciting young fencer in a generation, but that also draws the ire of the sport’s old guard, crusty fans of an ancient, insular sport. Now, fencing at its highest level is full of emotion like any sport, and Curtis is far from the first to bicker with a referee when he thinks they blew it. But Curtis’ heightened intensity is a blessing.

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To me, Curtis’s YouTube clips seem like they should be highlight reels, but the comments about his exuberance on the strip and banter with the referees that appear beneath put me in the minority. One commenter fears the South Jamaica, Queens product will make the sport “Go the way of the NBA”—no euphemism here—“full of disrespectful trash players.” Another expresses his pride in—seriously—“the refs for standing up to him.” Where else have you ever seen fans identify with the refs more than the players?

But this is fencing, where being a Black man in a white sport, and a demonstrative guy in a quiet one, interlock into a sort of existential affront to fencing’s stodgy culture. Maybe in an alternate universe, he’s a fiery competitor like Russell Westbrook. Here, he’s Curtis, the surly malcontent.

His intensity and showmanship are unique and defining traits, but Curtis explains that his approach—the one that has him ranked second in the US and 27th worldwide, and with a ticket booked to Tokyo for this summer’s Olympics—is a required part of his process.

“You got to treat your practice like a competition,” Curtis tells me when I ask about the screams and the showmanship. “A lot of people are afraid. They think, if I practice the same way, people will learn and you'll see my moves. But that's martial arts.”

“Why is (Curtis) so animated? I mean, he's a killer!” says Jake Hoyle, currently America’s top-ranked men’s épéeist and Curtis’ teammate. “Like, when you fence against him, he's trying to beat you 15-zero, every time. Like, he's not giving you any ground and he fences in practice like you would in a competition.”

Later on I ask Ben Bratton, one of Curtis’ mentors in fencing and the first African-American épeéist to win a world championship title with Team USA, a version of the same question: would Curtis be dealing with this kind of critique if he were white?

“No.” Bratton says, flatly. “But I'll also say that I think if Curtis was white, I don't even think he has to do that,” referring to the psych-up exuberance his mentee takes to the strip. “Curtis is weaponizing something that I think as a Black athlete, we can use: the ability to make your opponents, oftentimes white, uncomfortable by your power as a Black man. He's doing something that is exclusive to us.”

“A lot of people don't like it,” Hoyle says. “I don't know what the big deal is. What's the problem if he's yelling at practice? People are like, Oh, it's disturbing practice…it's obnoxious. But I don't see it like that.”

“You can be silent and your body language says “he’s a total *******.” And I think you can, like, respectfully scream,” says Pauline—again, one of the people he thoroughly beat. “A lot of people are not so happy with Curtis. But, you know he's a lot nicer than some of the people with good reputations.”

As Curtis continues dominating his way through practice, I take a seat on a bench near the conference room. An older woman approaches, joining two other middle-aged recreationists, with a complaint.

She rips her mask and protective gear off, and loudly proclaims: “He's screaming his ****ing head off!” She may be nearly as animated as Curtis, but the men nod along, similarly miffed that his quest for gold is tarnishing their weekly group aerobics class.

Every trait Curtis has cultivated may make him an Olympian. It also makes him a target. continued next post

[GeneChing]

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Demetria Goodwin’s friends swore her tall, slender boys would play basketball. She had other ideas.

“That was always the first thing that came out of people's mouths. I'm like, ‘No, nah. He swims,” she’d say, referring to Miller, her youngest.

“And he's a fencer," she’d insist of Curtis.

"Fencer?" A question her friends and neighbors would ask, usually twice just to make sure. “Oh, with the swords?” Demetria recalls, her thick Queens accent pulling out the silent “w.”

We’re chatting at a midtown diner— as a Queens native, I’d offered to meet her in her hood, but she enjoys being a brisk walk from where Curtis used to make his weekly trips to fencing practice, back when she was raising him as a single mom driving in on her days off from her busy schedule working on Rikers Island.

Demetria wasn’t joking, so when he was 12, she signed him up for the Peter Westbrook Foundation, a nonprofit founded by the first Black fencer to win an Olympic medal for Team USA. Curtis didn’t need much persuading, quickly realizing he’d rather seek fights on the strip instead of dodging them between classes at his Hollis, Queens middle school—one of three housed in the same building.

“I used to get my ass whipped over there, like all the time,” Curtis recalls. “I got my ass whooped so bad, the last day [of school] they just graduated me,” even though a mixup meant he’d missed nearly a third of seventh grade after getting hit by a car and jumped by the passengers.

It didn’t end there. “I. Cannot. Make. This. ****. Up.” Curtis tells me. The same crew rolled up to him three years later. This time, it wasn’t a beatdown, it was a drive-by.

“I'm looking at this car, and, Oh, Bentley in the hood is what I'm thinking. Then, this mother****er is driving fast...comes out in a power slide right, and I'm like, He look like he's got a gun or some ****.”

Shots were fired. Hunched under a mailbox, Curtis realized: “I'm leaving everything in the hood behind me.”

Fortunately, his fencing was already forging a path ahead. Curtis showed immediate promise, and older, accomplished fencers like Bratton quickly took notice of not just his physical gifts, but his diligence. Bratton remembers Curtis replicating the fundamentals world-class fencers twice his age practiced, studying his own moves in the mirror, far away from the other tweens.

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“Most people follow the system that they're put into,” he says. “But Curtis had enough insight even at that young an age, to assess his environment, what people were doing that were in a space that he wanted to be in and start doing it.”

But the wealthy, white culture sustaining his trade? Well, he’s still figuring that out, playing defense at all times like he’s down to his final point.

There was the time, Curtis says, he borrowed an equipment bag, one that couldn’t have cost more than $50 at the time, from the Club’s lost and found—a common practice among the boys at the Peter Westbrook Foundation, and anyway, he was late for a competition. His friend returned it, along with both of their blades, the next day, only for the club to inform him that the bag belonged to Miles Chamley-Watson, the foil fencer who would go on to win bronze in Rio de Janiero in 2016. Returning the bag intact to Chamley-Watson wasn’t enough for the club, nor was the apology Curtis was ordered to write to Miles and the Club’s board of directors. Nor was being reprimanded in front of the younger fencers Curtis was beginning to mentor, Fencer’s Club intent to teach its impressionable PWF kids that the Black-on-Black crime doesn’t pay.

The Club suspended Curtis for a year, and ordered him to replace Miles’ bag with a brand new set—Curtis estimates it cost him $400—if he wanted to be reinstated. He was 14.

Though Philippe Bennett wasn’t on the club’s board when Curtis was suspended, the current chair regrets the club's punitive actions, and goes out of his way to defend Curtis’ approach.

“(Curtis is) undaunted....He's definitely someone who we know that when you're on the strip, you've got yourself a true competitor. That's all he can do and I wish him the best.”

Bennett believes “a lot has evolved” at the Fencer’s Club, citing the club’s diversity statistics, the work of its DE&I committee, and the persistent presence of elite fencers of color like Curtis, as evidence that it's become a more inclusive institution.

(When I asked Curtis if the club was inclusive, his response was straightforward: “Hell no.”)

When Demetria learned her son was being suspended and fined, she wondered: “Are we trying to punish him? Or are we trying to correct him?" As a veteran of Rikers, she knew “the difference between I'm punishing you, and I'm gonna correct you so that you don't do it again.” It was clear the club couldn’t—or wouldn’t—draw the same distinction.

After Fencer’s Club threw him off the strip, Bratton gathered some of the other fencers—Adam Rodney, Dwight Smith, and Donovan Holtz—and brought Curtis to a nearby Starbucks on 28th and 7th in Chelsea.

“Most athletes who end up in that situation—they never come back from it,” Bratton told Curtis. “It’s almost like a death sentence.”

Ben’s advice: don’t let it be yours. “I basically challenged him to be the first to come back stronger and to not let it beat him down.”

After Curtis’ mom paid his fine and he did his time, he came back to the club, worked his way to a full scholarship from St. John’s University’s well-regarded fencing program, and was rated All-American in men’s épée twice. Somewhere in between St. John’s and Tokyo, Curtis developed a world-class flèche—an explosive running thrust where he shifts his body downward to surprise his opponent before striking upward for a point. His signature move marries his athleticism, aggression and deceptiveness.

Still, his brush with disaster has stuck with him. In conversation, even when discussing the beatdowns and drive-bys, Curtis’ voice has notes of nostalgia and amusement, a wistful “deadass, bro” punctuating every hair-raising hood testimony, along with a beaming smile not even his paper mask can cover. But the Fencer’s Club suspension? There was no silver lining.

"I just genuinely thought, like, Man, maybe I'm a bad person?” he says. "I'm really ****ing up.” It had confirmed for him a frustrating truth: that, despite his best efforts, and despite his all-world talent, he might not ever be fully accepted by the sport he loved, embraced by the institution he had given so much to.

“I'm starting to understand, like, no. The punishments that I receive—it's just never going to be proportionate to the crime that I actually make. And when I watch other kids do certain things, or my white counterparts? Slap on the wrist. That was my real first understanding of [how] people are going to look at me when I do certain things. And I'm not going to get the benefit of the doubt.”

For Curtis, it led to a somber epiphany, one that could come only from trading the predictable dangers of his all-Black school and community for the fickle embrace of a white institution: “I need to think how it looks first, rather than doing the right thing. Because doing the right thing can get me in trouble.” continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://media.gq.com/photos/60cb53693d607a4b2eb61a1b/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/427679_9383_03-1-3.jpg
“How many good African-American fencers are there?” Curtis asks me.

To start, I say, there’s Ibtihaj Muhammad, the star of the 2016 games, who won bronze while competing in hijab. Daryl Homer, the men’s sabreist, won silver five years ago and will compete again this year. And on Curtis’ own épeé team is Yeisser Ramirez, a sturdy Cuban American whose ferocity on the strip and Charizard wingspan helped him clinch him a spot. In other words, Curtis is just the latest character in a burgeoning movement of elite Black fencers competing on the sport’s most prominent stage.

“I'm not rare,” Curtis says. “I'm really not.” That may read triumphant—the Black fencer, no longer a rarity!—but Curtis sounds exasperated. I don’t blame him.

I met Curtis last year, in my capacity as a New York Daily News sports columnist. I wish I could say it was because of his prodigious fencing talent, or that we naturally found each other as fellow loudmouths from Queens. Instead, I got a tip that one of Curtis’s former St. Johns University coaches had told his Fencer’s Club students that Abraham Lincoln “made a mistake” when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

My reporting bore it out: last June, Ukranian-born Boris Vaksman told his students over Zoom that Lincoln had screwed up “because they”— ahem, ahem—“don’t want to work. They steal, they kill, they [do] drugs.” (He also clarified that it was only the “majority” of African-Americans responsible for such behavior.) That initially earned Vaksman a two-month suspension from the Fencer’s Club. After I wrote about the story, in conjunction with prominent fencers leaking the audio of Vaksman’s remarks, the club terminated his contract. USA Fencing then suspended him for two years.

ADVERTISEMENT

Reporting on Boris was a crash course in what young, gifted, and Black fencers like Curtis endure. Team USA’s solid quorum of Black fencers are exceptional athletes on their own merits—but even more so when you understand that because they are Black fencers, they are exceptions. Their existence is proof not just of their athletic excellence, but of their triumph over a system designed to keep them out.

It’s not just the racist coaches, though one can only imagine how many would-be fencers have quit rather than face the abuse. According to Fencing Parents, an independently published blog written for families interested in the sport, competitive youth fencing can cost between $20,000 and $40,000 a year. If you understand, generally, where wealth is concentrated in this country—which families hope to earn $40k a year and which can blow that amount on a hobby—then the lack of Black fencers should not surprise you. Curtis’ mother, Demetria, said Curtis’s training got pricey “to the point where I didn't even want to know the amount.”

“It’s a shame that I never actually did the budget-budget for it. Cause if I woulda done the budget, he might not have been fencing.” She’s joking, I think.

Later—nearly midnight, after he’s finished a private coaching session—Curtis still wants to talk, so he asks another question: “Over the last 20 years, there's been a lot of really good African American fencers. But how many African American coaches are there?”

I didn’t have the answer offhand, but I knew: not many.

The glaring lack of Black coaches, Curtis explained, is “because they're being iced out of the opportunity...They're being told, ‘Oh, if you want to work here, you have to get a degree in coaching from Europe.’”

I don’t know much about fencing; I can’t tell you how important European experience is for aspiring Black fencing coaches. But I do know other things.

As a baseball reporter, I have seen what happens when a sport’s exorbitant costs at the youth level close the door on American-born Black talent. I know what happens when there’s a near-complete absence of Black people working in leadership, both in coaching and front offices, across an entire organization. I’ve listened to broadcasters ridicule Marcus Stroman for wearing a du-rag under his ball cap. I’ve been at the center of national dialogues sparked by Fernando Tatis Jr committing the mortal sin of swinging at a hittable pitch, and by Tim Anderson’s decision, fresh off getting drilled by a fastball to his ass, to emote in a cultural context the league suspended him for, even as they proudly appropriate it with ignorant, hip-hop shaded marketing. And I can confirm that the press box—where I am frequently the only credentialed Black person present, and as such, have my presence challenged by colleagues and double-checked by stadium security—is no different than the field.

So, yeah, in a roundabout way, I know something about fencing.

But I also know that Curtis is still Curtis, in spite of the different rules Black people face. Or maybe, because of them.

“Look, you're a black man— you understand this,” he tells me as we leave the club towards Penn Station. “We walk around dealing with a certain level of perpetual pressure (that) white people don't understand.”

“I'm very confident in the technical and tactical strategies, but...there's a psychological level I can go above them. Because I don't have the same fears.”

The way Curtis embraces the deeper, existential pressures he faces reminds me of our earlier chat about traps on the fencing strip. Not because trying to score a point in épée and navigating the varied, systemic, and interlocking burdens of institutionalized racism are comparable, but because they aren't. You ain’t seen what he, or Ibtihaj, or Yeisser, Nzingha Prescod, or Darryl or Ben or especially Peter Westbrook has seen. But, since he’s seen what you ain’t, the moment the match becomes a mind game, Curtis is already in his bag.

And yes, he owns it.

threads
Fencing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?9851-Fencing)
Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

fencing (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/fencing)
archery (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/archery)
boxing (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/boxing)
wrestling (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/wrestling)
judo (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/judo)
taekwondo (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/taekwondo)
karate (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/karate)


threads
Fencing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?9851-Fencing)
Archery (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66419-Archery)
Boxing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?54079-Boxing)
Wrestling (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?58216-Wrestling)
Judo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42938-Judo)
Taekwondo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42906-Tae-Kwon-Do)
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

JULY 15, 2021 11:47 PM UPDATED 8 HOURS AGO
Virus outbreaks at Olympic hotels sow frustration, stoke infection fears (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-coronavirus-hotels-idUSKBN2EM0KS)
By Ju-min Park, Eimi Yamamitsu, Antoni Slodkowski

5 MIN READ


TOKYO (Reuters) - Coronavirus outbreaks involving Olympic teams in Japan have turned small-town hotels into facilities on the frontline of the pandemic battle, charged with implementing complex health measures to protect elite athletes and a fearful public.

https://static.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20210716&t=2&i=1569042628&r=LYNXMPEH6F096&w=1024)
FILE PHOTO: The exterior of the Hamanako hotel, where dozens of Brazilian Olympic team members stay and a COVID-19 cluster has been detected, is pictured in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan July 15, 2021. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
Infections here have hit at least seven teams arriving in Japan barely a week out from the July 23 opening ceremony and after host city Tokyo reported its highest daily tally of new COVID-19 infections since late January.

Health experts and hotel staff say the outbreaks underscore the risks of holding the world’s largest sports event during the middle of a global pandemic in a largely unvaccinated country.

In one example, 49 members of Brazil’s judo team are being kept in isolation after eight COVID-19 cases were discovered among the staff at a hotel where they are staying in Hamamatsu, southwest of Tokyo.

None of the judokas have tested positive but frustration over their isolation is mounting as health officials work to contain the outbreak.

“People from the city’s public health centre are tracking down close contacts here,” a staff member at the Hamanako hotel who did not want to be identified told Reuters. “There are dozens of regular guests as well but we’re getting cancellations now.”

The staff member said athletes are using designated lifts and those who work with them are prioritised for COVID-19 testing. Meals are held in the dining area in separate spaces and the athletes are staying on separate floors.

City official Yoshinobu Sawada said teams were required to sign formal agreements to follow coronavirus protocols on eating, movement and transportation restrictions. The infected hotel staff have been moved to quarantine centres.

Other outbreaks tmsnrt.rs/3r8Zv98 among athletes include members of Olympic delegations from Uganda, Serbia, Israel and several other nations either testing positive or isolating in their hotels after being designated as close contacts.

The organising committee did not immediately respond to Reuters’ questions seeking comment.

COMPLEX, COSTLY MEASURES
Games organisers tell hotels to report people with a high temperature during Olympic team check-ins and say organisers and public health centres will handle outbreaks or suspected cases, according to documents the organisers sent to hotels.

Hotels need to provide room service or food delivery to athletes in isolation, and run different hours or separate spaces for meals between Olympic guests and regular guests.

The documents say organisers will not cover costs for hotels to equip rooms with acrylic dividers or provide separate dining spaces for the athletes.

Tokyo 2020 playbooks for athletes and sports federations call for attendees to physically distance themselves from others, to wear masks, and to get tested daily.

Those playbooks are working and being enforced, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has said, and there was “zero” risk of Games participants infecting residents..

Tokyo entered its fourth state of emergency earlier this week amid a rebound in cases that pushed Games organisers to ban spectators from nearly all venues. More than 1,300 new cases were reported on Thursday, the most in six months.

Most people in Japan think the Games should not go ahead and only 18% are fully vaccinated.

UNVACCINATED CLEANING STAFF
Six hotel officials spoken to by Reuters were mostly worried about separating athletes from regular guests as well as the safety of their staff.

Azusa Takeuchi from the Lake Biwa Otsu Prince Hotel, which is hosting 53 members of New Zealand’s rowing team, said staff were taking COVID-19 tests every four days, wearing masks and providing contact-free services.

Similar measures were in place at the Ebina Vista Hotel on the outskirts of Tokyo, according to an Olympic official staying there, who said he was housed on the seventh floor but not permitted to use a lift.

“There are guards at each floor 24/7 preventing us from using them. Instead we are allowed to go from hotel restaurant to our rooms and back using only external evacuation stairs,” said the official, who did not want to be identified.

Other measures, confirmed by the hotel, include breakfast for the athletes served before 6:30 a.m. at the restaurant or through meal boxes delivered to hotel rooms.

Koichi Tsuchiya, the hotel manager, said he worried about his staff.

“I’m scared someone from the cleaning staff would get infected. People entering guest rooms are scared,” said Tsuchiya, adding that some staff were not vaccinated. “This is making us nervous.”

Tsuchiya also worried about his visitors.

“Travel agents brief the athletes before arrival: you can’t do this, this is not allowed, that is banned. I’m sure the athletes are extremely stressed,” he said.

“As staff, we’re doing our best to help them relax. But this is the situation we’re in, so the infection countermeasures are the priority.”

Additional reporting by Elaine Lies, Sakura Murakami, Rocky Swift, Ami Miyazaki and Mari Saito; Editing by Lincoln Feast.

threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)
Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

July 20, 2021
3:22 AM PDT
Last Updated 6 hours ago
Asia Pacific
Factbox: Coronavirus outbreaks at the Tokyo Olympics (https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/coronavirus-incidents-tokyo-olympics-2021-07-15/)
Reuters

2 minute read

People receive the first dose of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Central Vaccination Center, inside the Bang Sue Grand Station, Thailand, June 21, 2021. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

https://www.reuters.com/resizer/A2y5cZWAlAy0GDm9nliPE4kVVA0=/1200x0/filters:quality(80)/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/UGN55DF3XVNSRCAA6LBPQ6BODM.jpg
The logo of the Tokyo Olympic Games, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office building in Tokyo, Japan, January 22, 2021. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo


TOKYO, July 20 (Reuters) - The Tokyo 2020 Olympics, postponed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, will be held under unprecedented conditions including tight quarantine rules to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infections.

Nevertheless, a number of cases have emerged among athletes and other people involved with the Games.

Following is a list of cases, in chronological order.

JUNE 20 - A coach with Uganda's squad tests positive on arrival at Narita airport and is quarantined at a government-designated facility. The rest of the team heads by bus for their host city, Izumisano, near Osaka in western Japan.

JUNE 23 - A Ugandan athlete tests positive, according to Izumisano officials.

JULY 4 - A member of Serbia's rowing team tests positive on arrival. The other four team members are isolated as close contacts.

JULY 9 - One Lithuanian and one Israeli athlete test positive, according to reports. Later reports say the Lithuanian's results were unclear and subsequently tested negative.

JULY 14 - A masseur for the Russian women's rugby sevens team tests positive, forcing the team into isolation for two days, the RIA news agency reports. Officials in Munakata, southwestern Japan, confirm one staff member was hospitalised and say none of the team members could be considered a close contact.

- The refugee Olympic team delays its arrival in Japan after a team official tests positive in Doha. The infected official is in quarantine without symptoms, with 26 of the 29 refugees set to remain in their Doha training camp.

- Seven staff at a hotel in Hamamatsu, central Japan, where dozens of Brazilian athletes are staying, test positive, a city official says.

- Twenty-one members of the South African rugby team are in isolation after they are believed to have been in close contact with a case on their flight.

JULY 15 - Eight athletes from the Kenya women's rugby team are classified as close contacts after a positive coronavirus case is found on their flight to Tokyo, says an official with the southwestern city of Kurume, where they were set to hold a training camp.

- U.S. basketball player Bradley Beal’s Olympic dream is cut short when USA Basketball announce he will miss the Games after entering coronavirus protocols at the training camp in Las Vegas.

- An Olympic athlete under a 14-day quarantine period tests

positive for the virus before moving to the Olympic Village, the organising committee reports, without giving details. It says one member of the Games personnel and four Tokyo 2020 contractors also tested positive.

JULY 16 - Australian tennis player Alex de Minaur tests positive for COVID-19 before his departure for Tokyo, the Australian Olympic Committee says.

- A member of the Nigerian Olympics delegation is in hospital after testing positive at Narita airport, according to media reports. The person, in their 60s, has only light symptoms but was admitted to hospital because of their advanced age and pre-existing conditions, TV Asahi says, adding it was the first COVID-19 hospitalisation of an Olympics-related visitor.

- An Olympic-related non-resident under a 14-day quarantine period tests positive for the virus, the organisers say, without giving further details. Three Tokyo 2020 contractors, all of whom are residents of Japan, also tested positive, organisers say.

JULY 17 - Fifteen people test positive for the virus, the organisers say, including the first case at the athletes' village - a visitor from abroad involved in organising the Games. The rest are two members of the media, seven contractors and five members of the Games personnel.

JULY 18 - Ten people, including two South African male soccer players staying at the athletes' village, tested positive for the virus, organisers say. This is the first time athletes have been found positive within the village. The others are one athlete under a 14-day quarantine period, one member of the media, one contractor and five Games personnel.

JULY 19 - Three people - one member of the Games personnel, one member of the media and one contractor - tested positive for the virus, organisers say. Twenty-one people in the South African soccer delegation are categorised as close contacts, following positive test results for two soccer players from that country. The number of close contacts is later revised down to 18.

Those identified as close contacts can still take part in competition if they are found negative in a test conducted within six hours of the start of their event.

An alternate on the U.S. women's gymnastics team tests positive and another alternate is a close contact, USA Gymnastics say. They remain at the team's training camp just east of Tokyo.

JULY 20 - Nine people, including one athlete staying at the Olympic village, tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the organisers say. The other eight were a volunteer worker, a member of the Games personnel and six contractors.

Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka, Elaine Lies; Editing by Michael Perry, Lincoln Feast, Kim Coghill and Timothy Heritage

threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)
Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/simgad/14359969236170038248

GAISF President Raffaele Chiulli welcomes six new IOC recognised International Sports Federations (https://www.infobae.com/aroundtherings/press-releases/2021/07/20/gaisf-president-raffaele-chiulli-welcomes-six-new-ioc-recognised-international-sports-federations/)
July 20, 2021
GAISF President Raffaele Chiulli praised the six International Sports Federations (IFs) who were granted full International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognition at today’s IOC Session. The six fully recognised IFs granted full IOC recognition at the 138th IOC Session in Tokyo, Japan, are as follows:

♦ The International Cheerleading Union (ICU)

♦ The International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA)

♦ The International Sambo Federation (FIAS)

♦ The International Federation Icestocksport (IFI)

♦ The World Association of Kickboxing Organisations (WAKO)

♦ World Lacrosse (WL)

GAISF President Chiulli said:

“This is a historic day for the global sports community and an incredible milestone for each of these respective sports. Today’s decision will provide a major boost for each of these now fully recognised IFs to continue to grow their sports around the world. GAISF will continue to provide its expertise and support throughout the next stage of their journeys, in addition to the ongoing support provided by ARISF and AIMS.”

As a service to our readers, Around the Rings will provide verbatim texts of selected press releases issued by Olympic-related organizations, federations, businesses and sponsors.

These press releases appear as sent to Around the Rings and are not edited for spelling, grammar or punctuation. Hold the phone...cheerleading?

threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)
Muay-Thai (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?26700-Muay-Thai)
And we don't have a basic Kickboxing thread so I'm using this one: revert-to-kickboxing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?27527-quot-revert-to-kickboxing-quot)

[GeneChing]

What to know about karate at the Tokyo Olympics (https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/07/18/karate-olympics-2021/)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/DA3BHFHFGII6XCGFJ7LDQLCHZM.jpg&w=1440&impolicy=high_res
France's Alexandra Feracci is among the competitors in the Olympic karate competition. (Pascal Pochard-Casabianca/AFP/Getty Images)
By
Matt Bonesteel
July 18, 2021|Updated July 19, 2021 at 10:12 a.m. EDT

Karate will be an Olympic sport for the first time in Tokyo this year. It might be the last: Japanese Olympic organizers added it to the list of sports at this year’s Games under new IOC guidelines that allow organizing committees of each Olympics to include provisional new events for the Games they host. Karate will not be a competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and its status for Los Angeles in 2028 has yet to be determined.

So this might be your last chance to see the world’s top karatekas practice their craft on the world’s biggest athletic stage. Here’s what you need to know about karate at the Tokyo Olympics.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How does the Olympic kata competition work?
How does the Olympic kumite competition work?
Where will the Olympic karate competitions take place?
What is the schedule of Olympic karate events?
Who are the top American hopefuls in Olympic karate?
Who are the top international hopefuls in Olympic karate?
How does the Olympic kata competition work?
Athletes will compete in two karate competitions in Tokyo: kata and kumite.

In kata, athletes demonstrate offensive and defensive moves against a virtual opponent. In each demonstration, athletes must choose from one of 102 kata movements that are recognized by the World Karate Federation, and they are not allowed to perform the same kata twice in one tournament.

Get a daily guide to the Games with our Tokyo Olympics newsletter

Points are awarded by a panel of seven judges for stance, technique, transitional movement, timing, correct breathing, focus and conformance (70 percent of the score) and strength, speed and balance (30 percent of the score). The two highest and two lowest scores garnered by each performance are thrown out, and the remaining three scores are added up.

All athletes compete in the same weight class in kata, so only one set of medals will be awarded in men’s and women’s kata.


How does the Olympic kumite competition work?
In kumite, two athletes square off on an 8x8-meter mat. Matches end either after three minutes or when one of the competitors has amassed eight more points than their opponent, whichever comes first. Points are awarded for straight punches delivered to the body or face (one point), middle kicks delivered to the body (two points) and high kicks delivered to the head or punches delivered on an opponent who has been taken to the ground via sweep or takedown (three points).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6r8JwEFowY

If three minutes elapse, the competitor with the most points wins. In the event of a tie, whoever scored the first point is declared the winner. Scoreless draws are broken by a panel of five judges.


Medals will be awarded to different weight classes in kumite: under 67, under 75 and over 75 kilograms for men; and under 55, under 61 and over 61 kilograms for women.

Where will the Olympic karate competitions take place?
The karate events will be held at the Nippon Budokan, which was originally built to host the judo competition at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and will again host judo this year. Yes, it’s the same arena where Cheap Trick’s 1978 live-album colossus “Cheap Trick at Budokan” was recorded.

What is the schedule of Olympic karate events?
Aug. 4-5

Women’s kata, women’s kumite (under 55 kg), men’s kumite (under 67 kg)

Aug. 5-6

Men’s kata, women’s kumite (under 61 kg), men’s kumite (under 75 kg)

Aug. 6-7

Women’s kumite (over 61 kg), men’s kumite (over 75 kg)

Who are the top American hopefuls in Olympic karate?
Sakura Kokumai, a native of Hawaii, is the only American woman competing in karate and is ranked seventh in the World Karate Federation’s world kata rankings. Her parents both hail from Japan, and she has family still in the country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/F7KVS6FWSBE3XKS5QF6RK6SGSY.jpg&w=916
Sakura Kokumai competes in Paris in 2020. (Baptiste Fernandez/Icon Sport via Getty Images)
Thomas Scott (ranked sixth globally in under-75-kg kumite) and Ariel Torres Gutierrez (10th in men’s kata) are Team USA’s top chances to medal in men’s karate. Brian Irr rounds out the American karate roster in over-75-kg kumite.

Who are the top international hopefuls in Olympic karate?
The top men’s and women’s kata karatekas per the WKF rankings — Damián Quintero and Sandra Sánchez — both hail from Spain. Japan has both No. 2s (Ryo Kiyuna and Kiyou Shimizu).

In kumite, men’s medal contenders include 2018 world champion Steve Da Costa of France and Italy’s Angelo Crescenzo in the under-67-kg competition. Five-time world champion Rafael Aghayev of Azerbaijan (under 75 kg) and Turkey’s Ugur Aktas (over 75 kg) should also contend for spots on the podium. Croatia‘s Ivan Kvesic (over 75 kg) is a recent gold medalist at the world championships and European championships.

On the women’s side, Ukraine’s Anzhelika Terliuga (under 55 kg) tops the world rankings in her weight class. Serbia’s Jovana Prekovic (under 61 kg) and Azerbaijan’s Irina Zaretska (over 61 kg), both 2018 world champions, will also compete in Tokyo. China’s Yin Xiaoyan leads the world rankings in the under-61-kg weight class and finished second to Prekovic in 2018.

threads
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)

[YinOrYan]

Hold the phone...cheerleading?


Then all they got to do to get Wushu in the Olympics is change the dresscode to be more like that of ice-skaters...

[GeneChing]

Olympic fencing: Lee Kiefer wins USA's first-ever gold in individual foil (https://sports.yahoo.com/olympic-fencing-lee-kiefer-wins-us-as-first-ever-gold-in-individual-foil-122759143.html)
Jay Busbee
Sun, July 25, 2021, 5:27 AM·1 min read
In this article:

Fencing has been a part of the Olympic program ever since the modern incarnation of the Games began in 1896. In that time, no American had ever won gold in fencing's individual foil discipline ... until now.

Team USA's Lee Kiefer defeated Inna Derglazova (ROC) 15-13 to claim gold, triumphing in a tightly-fought match in which she mostly led, but never comfortably.

Deriglazova, who won gold in the event in Rio, battled back from multiple deficits to close to within 14-13, but Kiefer was able to hold on for the final point. This marks only the third Olympic gold for the United States in fencing. Mariel Zagunis won in saber at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.

Kiefer, a graduate of Notre Dame aligned with the Bluegrass Fencers' Club in Lexington, Kentucky, is a decorated victor, a four-time NCAA champion and a nine-time individual Pan American champion. She finished fifth in the event in the 2012 Olympics, and 10th at the 2016 Olympics.

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/cezdOZcz_zSweiIUpiT44Q--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY0MC4xNTQ4NTExOT c2NzcyO2NmPXdlYnA-/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2021-07/d7ef9800-ed42-11eb-9ba6-c09d5f4c7c85
Lee Kiefer celebrates the first individual foil Olympic gold medal in American history. (Elsa/Getty Images)

_____

Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybusbee or contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com.




Then all they got to do to get Wushu in the Olympics is change the dresscode to be more like that of ice-skaters... Honestly, YinOrYan - have you seen competition Wushu uniforms lately? We crossed that bridge years ago...:p

threads
Fencing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?9851-Fencing)
Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

18-year-old becomes first US woman to win gold in taekwondo (https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/564760-18-year-old-becomes-first-us-woman-to-win-gold-in-taekwondo)
BY OLAFIMIHAN OSHIN - 07/25/21 06:48 PM EDT 277

https://thehill.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumb_small_article/public/article_images/tokyoolympics.jpeg?itok=tXs3psEc
Anastasija Zolotic on Sunday became the first U.S. woman to win a gold medal in taekwondo, Yahoo Sports reported on Sunday.

Zolotic, 18, defeated Tatiana Minina of the Russian Olympic Committee 25-17 in the women’s 57-kg final at the Tokyo Olympics, in a competitive three-round bout. Entering the final round with a one-point lead, Zolotic gained seven more points to beat the fifth-ranked taekwondo fighter in the world.

Zolotic defeated Morocco’s Nada Laaraj, Turkey’s Hatice Kubra Ilgun and Chinese Taipei’s Lo Chia-ling en route to her gold medal match, according to Yahoo Sports.

Zolotic is the fourth Team USA athlete to win gold in Japan, joining swimmer Chase Kalisz, shooter Will Shaner and fencer Lee Kiefer.

Zolotic was the fourth American to reach the taekwondo final match, with former team USA athlete Steven Lopez holding two gold medals from the event, Yahoo Sports noted.

threads
Taekwondo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42906-Tae-Kwon-Do)
Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)

[YinOrYan]

Honestly, YinOrYan - have you seen competition Wushu uniforms lately? We crossed that bridge years ago...:p


Uh, can you point me some good examples??? If so, beach volleyball dresscode is the next level, then the Americans may score better with all the young judges, since older experienced judges are not allowed for wushu, ha ha

[GeneChing]

Sad to hear this. Greg was on the SJSU team one generation before me.


Olympic dream derailed: Stanford fencer Massialas spends days in COVID isolation, loses 1st match (https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/article/Olympic-dream-derailed-Stanford-fencer-Massialas-16339259.php)
Ann Killion
Updated: July 25, 2021 11:03 p.m.

San Francisco fencer Alexander Massialas lost his first Olympic match Monday, ending his dreams of adding another Olympic medal to his collection and continuing a nightmarish week due to COVID-19 protocols.
Massialas spent the past eight days quarantined in a hotel, apart from his teammates in the Olympic village. He was placed into contact tracing due to being seated on his flight to Japan near beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb, who tested positive for COVID-19 and had to withdraw from the Games last week.
Crabb, who said he is vaccinated, has remained in quarantine at his hotel.
Massialas, who is vaccinated and continues to test negative, was quarantined completely for three days and then allowed to only do certain kinds of limited training, but not be near any of his teammates.
“I’m obviously really disappointed,” said Massialas by Facetime after his loss to Germany’s Peter Joppich. “I’ve been trying to stay positive and make the best of a bad situation.”
But his father Greg, a former Olympic fencer, and a coach for the fencing team, thinks the week took its toll on his son.
“He’s been locked up in isolation and I think it got to him,” Greg said.
The ordeal started after Massialas landed in Tokyo and was held for 12 hours at the airport. He was taken to a quarantine hotel and stayed there for three days. Then he was transferred to another hotel, where more of Team USA is staying, but remained under strict protocols.
The three-time Olympian, who won a silver individual medal and a bronze team medal in Rio, spent much of the week wondering if he would be able to compete at all. He finally received clearance to compete in his foil match on Monday a few days ago. But he was unable to train with his teammates.
After the disappointment, he is looking toward Sunday’s team competition. He hopes by then, he will have been cleared to move into the village.
“Everyone’s flying blind - there’s not a lot of clarity,” Massialas said. “But the best athletes have the shortest memories. I’ll take some time to be upset and sad but then I’ll look forward to winning gold with my teammates.”
Massialas qualified for Tokyo several weeks before the Games were postponed. He spent 2020 training in his parents’ San Francisco home and working to save Stanford sports, including fencing. He was a key member of “36 Sports Strong” the Stanford alumni group that successfully fought to overturn the university’s decision to drop 11 sports.
Ranked fifth in the world, Massialas had hopes for gold at his third Olympics. He also looked forward to sharing the experience with his younger sister Sabrina, who is on her first Olympic team. He had hoped to walk in opening ceremonies with her and hang out in the village. Instead, Monday was the first time he saw her.
“I’m trying to get her to enjoy the moment, because this is something she’s dreamed of for a long time,” Massialas said. “Sometimes life throws something at you that you didn’t expect.”
Though Crabb was vaccinated and is apparently a breakthrough case, Massialas wishes that all his teammates were vaccinated because he’s an example of exactly what’s at risk. Close to 100 U.S. Olympians are unvaccinated, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. All are rolling the dice with not only their own Olympic dreams but those of their teammates.
“It’s definitely perplexing,” said Massialas, who added that the entire fencing team is vaccinated. “I like to think about my teammates and whether or not I’m putting them in a dangerous situation. I don’t want to hurt them in any way.”
Massialas’ five-year dream was derailed by the seat he was assigned on an airplane.
“Sometimes you get unlucky in life,” he said. “But at least I got to compete. And I will try to help my team win.”
Massialas’ teammate Gerek Meinhardt, another San Francisco native, also lost his first match on Monday. His potential pre-match distraction was for a far happier reason than Massialas. His wife Lee Kiefer won gold in individual foil on Sunday. The married fencers are both in medical school at the University of Kentucky.
“I think he had a really emotional, wonderful day and was a little bit drained,” said Greg Massialas.
The men’s team event will take place on August 1.

Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@sfchronicle.comTwitter: @annkillion

threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)
Fencing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?9851-Fencing)


Uh, can you point me some good examples??? If so, beach volleyball dresscode is the next level, then the Americans may score better with all the young judges, since older experienced judges are not allowed for wushu, ha ha srsly? Have you watched any world competition Wushu in the last half decade? It's not quite as sequined and embroidered as ice skaters yet, but it's aspiring to be so. It's definitely moving that direction.

[GeneChing]

OLYMPIC GAMES IN TOKYO27 JUL, 08:57 Updated at: 27 Jul, 10:37
Putin says Russia’s taekwondo Olympic victory shows martial arts on the rise in Russia (https://tass.com/sport/1318337)
The Russian President thanked coaches and mentors of the athlete, specialists of the national team and everyone who supported Vladislav Larin on his path to the gold medal

MOSCOW, July 27. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Vladislav Larin for his Tokyo Olympic victory in the taekwondo men’s +80 kg event, the Kremlin published the telegram on its website on Tuesday.

"Your success is a clear example that martial arts are on the rise in Russia, while the Russian taekwondo school trains worthy fighters who can face up to the most serious challenges," the telegram reads.

Putin thanked coaches and mentors of the athlete, specialists of the national team and everyone who supported Larin on his path to the gold medal.

On Tuesday, Larin defeated North Macedonia’s Dejan Georgievski in the final of the +80 kg tournament at the Tokyo Olympics. Russia’s taekwondo athletes have already won four medals at the Olympics, two golds, one silver and one bronze. Larin’s victory came after Maksim Khramtcov became the first Olympic taekwondo champion in Russia on Monday in the men’s 80 kg category. Moreover, Tatiana Minina fought her way to the silver medal (women’s 57 kg), while Mikhail Artamonov won bronze (men’s 58 kg).

threads
Taekwondo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?42906-Tae-Kwon-Do)
Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

I've mentioned this before but I used to work for Uchida sensei at Laboratory Services. Never trained under him though.


TOKYO SUMMER OLYMPICS
At 101, judo coaching great Yosh Uchida still isn’t done helping Olympians (https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2021-07-25/judo-coaching-great-yosh-uchida-tokyo-olympics)
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2b94a04/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1371x938+0+286/resize/840x575!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fec%2F4c%2Fe7f28e6c48 619b91e800ddc3a430%2Fyosh-uchida2.jpg
Prolific judo coach Yosh Uchida still heads San Jose State’s storied program 70 years after assuming the post.(San Jose State Athletics Archives)
BY JORGE CASTILLO STAFF WRITER
JULY 25, 2021 5 AM PT
TOKYO — Yosh Uchida made a promise to Colton Brown in 2016, right after Brown competed in judo for the United States at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics: Qualify for the 2020 Games in Tokyo and I’ll be there.
Attending the Tokyo Olympics would have closed a circle for Uchida. The son of Japanese immigrants and raised in Orange County, he was the U.S. judo team’s coach at the Games in 1964, when the sport made its Olympic debut in its birthplace. The city, the country, the martial art supplied him more than a lifetime’s worth of memories.

Uchida was 96 years old in 2016. He would be a centenarian by the next opening ceremony. People his age usually don’t make plans four years in advance. But Uchida reached his 100th birthday in April 2020 and bought his ticket to the Nippon Budokan to fulfill his pledge.

The COVID-19 pandemic postponed the Games a year. Still, Uchida, at 101, was ready to make the long journey to watch Brown — until spectators were banned from most Olympic venues.

The gut punch precluded what would have been a fitting conclusion to Uchida’s international judo life.

Over decades, through tireless advocacy, he became the godfather of judo in the United States, and he still heads San Jose State’s storied program 70 years after assuming the post.

He pushed for the implementation of weight classes in the sport, a necessary step for inclusion in the Olympics, and helped bring about its breakthrough on the international scene. He’s received both the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government for his work.

But five years after his Rio de Janeiro promise, Uchida will be stuck thousands of miles away at home in Northern California while Brown, the 17th of his San Jose State pupils to reach the sport’s top competition, takes the mat Wednesday in the men’s 90-kilogram weight class. Uchida hopes to watch the match on television.

“I’m going to be glued to it,” Uchida said, “unless it’s late.”

::

Uchida wore a blue San Jose State Spartans jacket over a black sweater in his living room for a recent video call. With the help of his assistant, he keenly relayed his thoughts and experiences. After spending a year inside his home, he was a seasoned Zoomer — more than 120 people joined him on a Zoom call to celebrate his 100th birthday, and he held classes on judo history during the pandemic. Finally, COVID-19 vaccinations have slowly expanded his bubble.

He had 15 people visit him for a backyard barbecue for his 101st birthday. His daughter traveled from Hawaii recently for the first time since the pandemic began, and he enjoyed his first meal at a restaurant in more than a year while she was in town. Japanese, of course.

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/feacf85/2147483647/strip/true/crop/614x768+0+0/resize/840x1051!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F98%2Fdf%2F29f53bc940 bd93eb5c97d348d7b6%2Foly2.png
Yosh Uchida founded the National Collegiate Judo Assn. in 1962 and coached the first U.S. Olympic judo team at the 1964 Tokyo Games.(San Jose State Athletics Archives)

“This man will not die of COVID,” said Jan Cougill, his assistant since 2008 and a family friend for 56 years. “He will die from boredom if we don’t get socialization.”

Uchida was born in Calexico in 1920, two years after the deadliest pandemic in modern history ravaged the country, and raised in Garden Grove. His father grew strawberries and tomatoes. His mother pushed him into judo when he was 10 years old.

“I was a Nisei, born in the United States,” Uchida said, “and she wanted me to know something about Japanese culture.”

He attended San Jose State before he was drafted for World War II and sent to segregated military camps in the Midwest while his family was split among Japanese incarceration camps. He served for four years and married his late wife, Mae, at the Poston prison camp in Arizona in 1943.

“My parents were in concentration camps because they were suspected of being spies,” Uchida said. “If you know my parents, they had very little education. They knew nothing about spying.”

He returned to San Jose State in 1946, finished his degree in biological science the next year and stayed at the school to coach the judo team.

::

Japanese educator Kano Jigoro created judo, a system of unarmed combat, in 1882. Its origins can be traced to jujitsu. The participants — judoka — are taught to use an opponent’s force against them. The goal is to cleanly throw, pin or master the opponent. Strikes of any kind are not allowed. It is intended to train the mind and body.

Uchida was a small judoka, topping out at 5 feet 2, 135 pounds, but his presence off the mat stretched internationally. While establishing himself as a prominent businessman in the Japanese American community — he opened 41 medical laboratories in the Bay Area — he championed the sport he credits for cementing his identity.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

I walked into San Jose State and I thought that I knew everything. He taught me that I really don’t know much.

COLTON BROWN, YOSH UCHIDA’S PUPIL AND U.S. OLYMPIAN

He started the San Jose Buddhist Judo Club and another in Palo Alto. He was the director of the first national Amateur Athletic Union championships in 1953. He founded the National Collegiate Judo Assn. in 1962. A year later, he helped initiate the first nationwide high school interscholastic judo championships. A year after that, he coached the four-man U.S. team in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

“He had a wonderful ability to organize things, and I don’t think that judo would’ve become a national collegiate sport, a national high school sport, a national open sport, if it didn’t have somebody with Yosh’s organizational skills,” said Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a San Jose State graduate and one of the four American judoka at the 1964 Games. “It wouldn’t have grown that fast in the 1950s and ’60s.”

Campbell, who would become a U.S. senator from Colorado, was forced to withdraw from the open weight class in 1964 after tearing the ACL in his knee in his second match. James Bregman emerged from the middleweight division with a bronze medal, the first of 16 Olympic medals won by Americans in judo.

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/830d0e1/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1500x1198+0+0/resize/840x671!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3f%2Fd7%2F94d1ca8846 bb8a52b3837f925687%2Fyosh-uchida.jpg
Yosh Uchida, center, coached the four-man U.S. judo entry in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics: from left, George Harris, James Bregman, Paul Maruyama and Ben Nighthorse Campbell.(San Jose State Athletics Archives)

Knowing that Mr. Uchida is not here but he’s still going to be watching, in a sense, that means that he’s with me.

COLTON BROWN

Mike Swain took bronze at the 1988 Seoul Games after becoming the first American man to win the judo world championships in 1987. A New Jersey native, he enrolled at San Jose State upon qualifying for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which the United States boycotted after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. By that time, Uchida’s program was an unparalleled powerhouse. Swain didn’t think twice.

“He was very demanding,” said Swain, who became a coach with the program after qualifying to compete in four Olympics. “Wherever we were going, you had to travel with a suit and tie, and you always got there really early. He was all about discipline. He was the coach of the San Jose State judo team, but he was more of a mentor.”

::

Brown, also a New Jersey native, met Uchida in 2009 when he arrived at San Jose State as a teenager. Uchida was approaching 90, but the two connected.

“I walked into San Jose State and I thought that I knew everything,” Brown said. “He taught me that I really don’t know much.”

Brown visited Uchida’s office nearly every day. They regularly ate meals together. Their talks focused not on the sport but on life. On education, on preparing Brown for the day when judo would be in the rearview mirror.

On the mat, Brown helped extend San Jose State’s national judo dominance. The school has won 48 of the 59 men’s National Collegiate Judo Assn. team championships and 24 women’s team championships since women’s competition began in 1975 — the most titles for a school in any American collegiate sport ever.

Brown was a three-time national champion. He rose to team captain — chosen by Uchida — and graduated in 2015. He reported to Brazil the next summer representing the United States, with Uchida in the crowd. He won his first match but lost his second and was eliminated.

Six American judoka competed that year. Travis Stevens won the country’s one medal — a silver in the half-middleweight division. This time, Brown, 29, is one of four Americans and the only man. He’s scheduled to fight at the Nippon Budokan on Wednesday against Liechtenstein’s Raphael Schwendinger. Brown, ranked 28th in the world, is the favorite over the 117th-ranked Schwendinger.

Competitors are guaranteed a medal with four wins by the end of the day. Five victories and Brown would become the second American to earn an Olympic judo gold medal.

“Knowing that Mr. Uchida is not here but he’s still going to be watching, in a sense, that means that he’s with me,” Brown said. “Him being on this earth for this long and being coherent enough to still take interest in me and know that and support me, it means the world to me.”

Brown hasn’t seen Uchida since before the pandemic. He was supposed to attend Uchida’s 100th birthday celebration in April 2020 before it was canceled, and he plans on visiting sometime after the Olympics.

Uchida might be coaching again by then. He wants to return to San Jose State’s dojo — named after him in 1997 — if it reopens this fall.

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/d01df8b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1280x853+0+0/resize/840x560!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb7%2F64%2F79533f1147 8fb20ade0fb94fe8ac%2Fuchida1.png
Yosh Uchida plans to coach again in the fall if San Jose State’s dojo reopens.(San Jose State Athletics Archives)
Uchida’s checklist isn’t complete. He’s worked with San Jose State President Mary Papazian in recent years to create an exchange program between the school — one of six official U.S. judo Olympic training centers — and Japanese universities. The timeline is unknown, but he’d like to see his efforts come to fruition before he turns 110. Brown isn’t betting against him.

“I didn’t know if he was still going to be here after 2016, and here he is,” Brown said. “He’s still kicking. He’s lived a spectacular life and he’s still going. He’s still going strong.”



Jorge Castillo

Jorge Castillo covers the Dodgers for the Los Angeles Times.


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[GeneChing]

US fencers wear pink masks after teammate accused of sexual misconduct (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/30/us-fencers-wear-pink-masks-alex-hadzic-olympics?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1)
Fencing team reportedly object to teammate’s place on team
Alen Hadzic denies allegations against him
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7ec9c244bc0317c40d2c52a90ffc45447338c090/0_8_8640_5184/master/8640.jpg
The US men’s épée team lost to Japan on Friday. Photograph: Hassan Ammar/AP
Guardian sport
Fri 30 Jul 2021 10.41 EDT

Three members of the United States Olympic men’s épée team wore pink masks on Friday amid allegations their teammate is guilty of sexual misconduct.

Jake Hoyle, Curtis McDowald and Yeisser Ramirez all wore pink facemasks before the start of the competition. Alex Hadzic, who has been accused of sexual assault, was the only member of the team who did not.

Hadzic qualified for the Tokyo Games in May. Shortly afterwards, three women accused him of sexual impropriety in incidents that occurred from 2013 to 2015. Hadzic’s attorney, Michael Palma, told the New York Times the fencer was innocent of all allegations. He did confirm that Hadzic was suspended from Columbia University for the 2013-14 school year after an investigation involving sexual consent.

In the wake of the allegations, the US Center for SafeSport suspended the 29-year-old from all fencing activities on 2 June. Hadzic appealed that suspension and won. The arbitrator ruled Hadzic should not contact his accusers while saying his suspension had been “inappropriate to the allegations”. However, he travelled to Tokyo separately from his teammates and had to stay in a hotel away from the athletes’ village.

While Hoyle, McDowald and Ramirez’s facemasks were an apparent rebuke of Hadzic they did not comment verbally on the matter on Friday. One of Hadzic’s teammates, Katharine Holmes, says she collected electronic signatures from every member of the fencing team objecting to Hadzic’s inclusion at the Olympics. Palma has distributed a letter of objection from Holmes, which includes only her written signature.

Hadzic was an alternate on the US team and did not compete. The US men’s épée team lost to Japan on Friday, ending their Olympic campaign.

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metoo-(An-Open-Secret-Hollywood-Please-Watch) (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70520-metoo-(An-Open-Secret-Hollywood-Please-Watch))

[GeneChing]

Yahoo Sports
Irish boxer Aidan Walsh out of Olympics after he injured ankle celebrating win (https://sports.yahoo.com/irish-boxer-aidan-walsh-out-tokyo-olympics-after-he-injured-ankle-celebrating-win-034404157.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb)
Ryan Young·Writer
Sat, July 31, 2021, 8:44 PM·1 min read
Irish boxer Aidan Walsh has withdrawn from his semifinal bout in Tokyo after he injured his ankle celebrating.

Walsh didn’t attend the medical check and weigh-in for his fight against Great Britain’s Pat McCormack on Sunday, according to The Associated Press. His absence means that McCormack will advance to the gold medal welterweight fight.

Walsh will still win a bronze medal. McCormack will now take on either Cuba’s Roniel Iglesias or Russia’s Andrei Zamkovoy in the gold medal fight.

“What Aidan did this week is an incredible achievement,” Ireland boxing team leader Bernard Dunne said, via The Associated Press. “His performance throughout the tournament has been outstanding, and it is great to see him write his name in the annals of Irish sport.”

Walsh hurt his ankle celebrating QF win

Walsh reached the semifinal match after beating Mauritius’ Merven Clair in the quarterfinals. After he was given the win, though, Walsh started a wild celebration.

He jumped up and down multiple times and then landed awkwardly on his ankle.

He was later seen leaving the arena in a wheelchair.

The Irish team said that Walsh injured his ankle, but only said that he did so during the fight. His ankle wasn’t an issue until after his win.


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[GeneChing]

Red Flags Were Raised, but an Olympic Dream Was Dashed (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/sports/olympics/maya-wasowicz-karate.html)
Maya Wasowicz, a top karate fighter, was knocked out of qualifying under suspicious circumstances. A U.S.O.P.C. report backed up her claims, but Wasowicz still won’t be in Tokyo.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/16/sports/16olympics-karate-1/merlin_167082051_e6307d6c-913b-4307-a42a-db72a5865ab1-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
Maya Wasowicz is an elite fighter, and was favored in a U.S. tournament that could have propelled her to the Tokyo Olympics. The circumstances of her loss raised many questions.Credit...Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

By David Waldstein
Published July 16, 2021
Updated July 24, 2021
Maya Wasowicz was all alone when the last flicker of her Olympic dream died.

The world’s best karate fighters were throwing punches in Paris to determine who would go to the Olympics. Wasowicz and her supporters all felt that she should have been there, too. Instead, she sat on a bed in her grandmother’s apartment in Opole, Poland, streaming the event live on her phone — alone, in the dark.

Don’t miss a moment at the Tokyo Olympics Sign up for our daily email update. Get it sent to your inbox.
“I was definitely grieving it,” Wasowicz said, days later. “My family and friends refused to watch. But I had to see it.”

Over the next few weeks, fans of the Olympics will ingest a tidal wave of heartwarming tales illuminating the realized dreams of scores of dedicated and exceptional athletes. Tales of sacrifice and success, of years of hard work rewarded in a moment of glory. Then there are the stories of those left behind, many of them dedicated athletes like Wasowicz, who dream of medals, but find complex political roadblocks in their way.

A Polish émigré to the United States at the age of 11, Wasowicz discovered karate in Brooklyn as a girl and rose to become one of the elite fighters in the world. In 2016, when word filtered out that karate would be introduced at the next Olympiad, Wasowicz made the life-altering decision to try to be one of the handful of competitors in Japan, the ancestral home of the sport.

She put the rest of her life on hold, moved back in with her parents and dived into training. She even dared to visualize herself in Tokyo, in the arena, the American flag on her suit, fighting for her adopted country.

In order to earn that coveted place, Wasowicz first needed to win a domestic tournament in Colorado Springs in January 2020, an event she entered as one of the favorites. But in a day filled with controversy and acrimony, Wasowicz lost — unfairly, in her mind. An investigation by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee appears to back her contention, shared by other athletes, that the USA National Karate-Do Federation is rife with favoritism and conflicts of interest.

In a scathing report in April, the committee found that the federation “is not capable of fulfilling the responsibilities of an Olympic Sports Organization” and warned that if it did not address some serious issues, it would be stripped of its status as a national governing body.

But for Wasowicz and others, the report came too late. The U.S.O.P.C. did not require the federation to hold a new competition to correct whatever injustices may have existed in Colorado Springs.

“I feel validated that I’m not just a sore loser,” Wasowicz said. “People on the outside saw what was happening. But seeing them get away with all of this is just really tough to accept.”


Today, Wasowicz is back in New York, searching for work and trying to make sense of everything that happened.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/16/sports/16olympics-karate-2/merlin_167083290_0ee88fbd-28a0-4a56-beca-5db4ff28de44-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
When her family moved to the United States from Poland, Wasowicz found a home at the Goshin Ryu dojo in Brooklyn. Credit...Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

Learning to Be New Yorkers

Wasowicz, 27, was born in New Jersey, but she spent her first 11 years of life in Poland, before her family moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2005. Wasowicz remembers everything about her first day in the new metropolis. Her father took her across the Williamsburg Bridge and showed her the magnificent view of Manhattan spreading below. A few hours later, she spotted her first rat in the subway.

Life in a bustling urban environment could sometimes be overwhelming, especially that first bewildering year in school where Maya and her younger brother, Kuba, struggled to grasp morsels of English. The Polish markets and restaurants that dotted the city were places the Wasowicz family found temporary sanctuary and support.

“We talk about it all the time,” Wasowicz said. “What if we ended up in a random city in the middle of America? Here I found people who could relate to my experience. We were very lucky that we ended up in New York.”

One day they happened upon the Goshin Ryu dojo, a karate school in Brooklyn. It was run by Luis Ruiz, who remains Wasowicz’s sensei, or coach. Maya and Kuba reveled in the physical outlet that karate offered, a place where English was not as important as dedication, discipline and honor — or a good measure of athletic ability.

Wasowicz’s parents welcomed an activity that would help their children, who had faced bullying in school, defend themselves and gain self-confidence. For Maya and Kuba, it was just fun, and she continued to work with Ruiz, even after her family moved to Manhattan’s East Village.

It was there, while attending the Tompkins Square Middle School, that Wasowicz also discovered basketball. When she moved on to Beacon High School, Wasowicz joined the school’s varsity team, and four years later she was the school’s career scoring leader and the first Beacon player to have her number retired. She earned an academic scholarship to New York University, and played basketball all four years for the Violets while negotiating the complicated balance of varsity sports, rigorous academics (she majored in economics) and karate.

“I was in awe of Maya,” said Lauren Mullen, N.Y.U.’s coach at the time. “Here’s this 11-year-old girl who knew no English and then goes to N.Y.U. playing two sports at a really high level, and all with this self-confidence and toughness that you rarely see. She was just a winner.”

But as her basketball career ended in 2016, Wasowicz’s Olympic dream zoomed to the fore. She put any career business ambitions aside and moved back into her parents’ apartment in the East Village for the next five years while training two or three times a day with Ruiz in Brooklyn.

“Every athlete has to make that decision,” she said. “You put your life on hold and commit everything to going for it.”

A heavyweight who fights in the plus-68-kilogram class, Wasowicz grew stronger and more dangerous. In 2016 she was part of a U.S. team that won bronze at the world championships in Austria and reached a No. 7 worldwide ranking. In 2019, she won gold at the Pan American championships.
Continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/16/sports/16olympics-karate-3/merlin_190897011_4d1e8595-7204-43a7-939a-ec9cb174c1be-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
Wasowicz was a star athlete at New York University, excelling at basketball in addition to her karate. Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

The Match

Heading into the U.S. team trials in Colorado Springs in early 2020, Wasowicz was brimming with confidence and poised for destruction. But during her matches against rival Cirrus Lingl that day, curious things happened, according to Wasowicz and Ruiz — their claims backed by both video footage and the independent investigation.

John DiPasquale, the president and chairman of USA-NKF, which has enormous influence over the sport, walked behind the scorer’s table several times during Wasowicz’s matches against Lingl. DiPasquale runs a top dojo in Illinois where Lingl trained, and during one of the early matches between the fighters that day, Wasowicz grew incensed, feeling DiPasquale was trying to influence the scoring in favor of Lingl. During a break, Wasowicz and Ruiz decided that if it happened again, she would complain to the referee.

A video of one of those later matches shows Wasowicz gesturing in consternation toward DiPasquale as he hovered behind the table during a scoring review. He is also seen pacing behind the table, perhaps just nervous for his fighter, during the action. But as the U.S.O.P.C. pointed out, it looked inappropriate and raised doubts.

Wasowicz contends that she had Lingl beaten earlier in the day but was not awarded the points she deserved. That result kept Lingl in the competition, and ensured she and Wasowicz would fight again, in the final. There, Lingl, an expert in her own right, won with a deft head kick. Furious, Ruiz unloaded on DiPasquale, charging that the president had affected the outcome.

When reached by phone for comment on the investigation, DiPasquale said, “Not a chance, pal,” and hung up.

Others in the U.S. federation dismissed complaints of bias. “Maya is one of the best we have,” said Brody Burns, the head coach of the U.S. Olympic team and a sensei at a top dojo in Texas. “But it’s not like she lost to a no name. She lost to a good fighter.”

Wasowicz agrees that she and Lingl are evenly matched. But on that day, she felt she was better, and that she should have earned a spot in the all-important Paris qualifying event.

A few weeks later, though, her problems were dwarfed by the pandemic. During the shutdown, Wasowicz stewed and pondered her options, and learned that other athletes were making similar charges against DiPasquale and the federation. The U.S.O.P.C. agreed to look into the matter and hired DLA Piper, an international law firm, to investigate.


https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/16/sports/16olympics-karate-4/merlin_190897074_a3edba78-010a-4f63-93eb-f926d000567b-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
While disappointed that she was not given another chance to qualify for the Olympics, Wasowicz, left, has continued to watch matches. She plans to watch the Olympics as well. Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

The Report

In a blistering letter from Holly R. Shick, the chief ethics and compliance officer of the U.S.O.P.C., to DiPasquale and the national karate federation, dated April 24 and obtained by The New York Times, the committee demanded immediate reforms. It noted the “severity of the issues” and said termination of the federation’s status as the national governing body “may be appropriate at this time.”

The investigation found numerous actual and perceived conflicts of interest, and the letter noted that there is a perception by athletes and coaches “of bias in favor of Mr. DiPasquale’s and Brody Burns’ dojos’ athletes.” Other athletes routinely feel, the investigators wrote, that “they have to ‘beat the system to succeed.’”

Phil Hampel, the chief executive of USA-NKF, declined to comment. A spokesman for the U.S.O.P.C. referred all questions back to the letter.

It read like an indictment, but it did nothing to further Wasowicz’s hope of a redo of the qualifying event. That is why she sat alone in that dark room in Poland while on a family vacation in June, streaming Lingl’s fight in Paris on her phone’s tiny screen.

Lingl lost in the first round, ensuring that not only would she not go to Tokyo, but that the United States would not have a woman karate fighter in Japan.

“There is a part of me that obviously wanted her to win to keep the hope alive,” said Wasowicz, who until the final loss had held out faint hope that she might somehow go as an alternate. “There was also the part I don’t like about myself, that if she loses first round, it will prove my point.”

Now back in New York, Wasowicz is in a recovery phase. Her focus is on starting a career, like most of her N.Y.U. classmates, except it’s five years later. She teaches at her dojo a couple of days a week, sends out 20 résumés a day, and prepares to attack the next phase of her life as she did the last.

“You look back from where I was as an 11-year-old girl and where I am right now,” she said, “if I can do all that, I can do many things.”


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[GeneChing]

Read my latest feature for YMAA: Olympic Karate: A New Martial Art Enters the Ring (https://ymaa.com/articles/2021/08/olympic-karate-a-new-martial-art-enters-the-ring)

https://ymaa.com/sites/default/files/images/article/articles-20210802-olympic-karate.jpg

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[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1HQDP-tkxo

I understand why this was ruled so, but it's a laughing stock for those who don't understand sports vs. martial arts.

Makes me wonder if the medalist took a dive...

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Olympics-Judo-Riner shines even as Japan judokas win record gold (https://www.metro.us/olympics-judo-riner-shines-even-as/)

By Tetsushi Kajimoto
Posted on August 7, 2021

https://www.metro.us/wp-content/uploads/Reuters_Direct_Media/USOnlineReportSportsNews/tagreuters.com2021binary_LYNXMPEH7601F-BASEIMAGE.jpg

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese judokas achieved a record gold medal rush for the host country at the Tokyo Games, but it was France’s Teddy Riner who stole the show at the home of judo in the end.

Of the 14 weight categories for the men and women, Japan won nine golds, a silver and a bronze in the individual contests in Tokyo – a record haul since judo became an Olympic event for men in 1964 and for women in 1992.

However, the feeling of exaltation among Japanese judokas quickly faded after they suffered a shock loss https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/judo-japan-france-compete-gold-first-judo-team-event-2021-07-31 against Riner-led France 1-4 in the mixed team event on the final day of the judo contest.

“This is the reality in the world. The world of judo is evolving fast,” Kosei Inoue, the head coach of the Japanese judo national team, told reporters.

“I’m really frustrated as we ended up in the second place and couldn’t live up to expectations, although I’m the happiest man on earth to have worked with such wonderful athletes.”

Japanese judokas have a big job to do if they want to outperform their Tokyo Games results at the Paris 2024, he added.

Confronting Japan will likely be French judokas led by Riner, who plans to return to the mat for his fourth Games in his home country.

The 32-year-old French heavyweight legend had to settle for the bronze medal https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/judo-frances-riner-suffers-shock-defeat-hunt-3rd-straight-judo-gold-2021-07-30 after failing to win a third consecutive Olympic gold in the men’s +100kg individual contest against Tamerlan Bashaev of the Russian Olympic Committee.

A win at Tokyo’s Budokan, the arena built to host judo’s debut at the 1964 Games, would have matched the record held by Japanese great judoka Tadahiro Nomura.

Still, the French win in the team event helped bring Riner a tally of three golds and two bronze medals from his Olympics appearances. Riner said he was happy to win both bronze for the individual and gold for the team event.

“It’s my third Olympic gold medal, my fifth medal at an Olympics. I think this is very, very… important to win here in the country of judo during the Olympic Games in Tokyo at the Budokan. It’s just amazing,” Riner told reporters.

“This is a dream, we win the final (against the) Japanese team. Wow.”

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

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Paris-Olympics (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68366-2024-Paris-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

Sumo scare? Riders say horses might be spooked by statue (https://sports.yahoo.com/sumo-scare-riders-horses-might-153629365.html)
JAKE SEINER
Tue, August 3, 2021, 8:36 AM·3 min read
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/xuanYXGZmZUwUhPBwxa22Q--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTYzOS45MjU0OTQ3Nj EzNTA0/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/6b5WOkVs.i5l_qgUp2.10g--~B/aD0yODYzO3c9NDI5NTthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/ap.org/5239e900406d3281252432e93257708e
Britain's Harry Charles, riding Romeo 88, competes during the equestrian jumping individual qualifying at Equestrian Park in Tokyo at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
More
KAMIYOGA, Japan (AP) — Equestrian jumpers aren't keen on surprises. Neither are the horses, and it takes years of training to keep them from getting spooked.

Of course, no horse in Tuesday night's Olympic jumping qualifier had ever seen anything like obstacle No. 10.

“As you come around, you see a big guy’s (butt),” British rider Harry Charles said.

“There's a lot to look at,” Ireland's Cian O'Connor added.

“It is very realistic,” echoed Israel's Teddy Vlock.

Riders say a life-size sumo wrestler positioned next to the 10th obstacle on the 14-jump Olympic course may have distracted several horses in qualifying for the individual jumping final Tuesday night. A few pairings pulled up short of the barrier, accumulating enough penalty points to prevent entry into Wednesday's finals.

The statue is positioned to the left of a jump placed in the corner of the arena. Hunched over and seemingly ready to attack, the wrestler is facing away from approaching riders, meaning that when they complete a sharp turn to take on the jump, the first thing horse and human see is the wedgie created by the wrestler's mawashi.

“I did notice four or five horses really taking a spook to that,” Charles said.

Most of the course’s hurdles are decorated with a distinctly Japanese feel — geisha kimonos, a miniature Japanese palace, taiko drums.

None caught the eye quite like the sumo wrestler.

Among the horses alarmed by the setup was France's Penelope Leprevost — a team jumping gold medalist in 2016. She wasn't sure if the wrestler specifically threw off her 12-year-old stallion, Vancouver de Lanlore.

“Maybe," she said. "We tried to relax our horses in the turn, and maybe they’re surprised to see a vertical so close. I don’t know.”

Vlock went 34th in the 73-horse field. After seeing others have issues, he and trainer Darragh Kenny of Ireland — also a competitor in Tuesday's field — made a point of trotting their horses to the 10th jump before beginning their runs so the animals could look it over.

The hope was that familiarity would breed bravery.

“It is very realistic,” Vlock said. "It does look like a person, and that’s a little spooky. You know, horses don’t want to see a guy, like, looking intense next to a jump, looking like he’s ready to fight you.”

Vlock and Kenny both cleared the obstacle without issue. Kenny finished second with no penalty points and a time of 82.01, while Vlock fell short due to other issues.

Of course, it's hard to know what's in a horse's head. Some riders chalked up the troubles to how close the jump was positioned to the turn. Others blamed the stadium's bright lights that also led to concern at jump No. 1.

Medal hopefuls Scott Brash of Britain and Martin Fuchs of Switzerland believed cherry blossoms positioned on the other side of the jump were the more likely culprit.

Whatever the cause, it's not surprising to Olympic veterans that there's drama around the park. The Games have a reputation among riders for flashy course design, including an oddly shaped jump at Rio de Janeiro in 2016 that caused similar consternation.

“To be honest, you expect it in the Olympic Games," Brash said.

And that's OK with them.

“You know it’s going to be colorful coming here,” he added. "You know it’s going to be decorative. And it’s beautiful, you know? It’s fantastic. That’s what makes it a championship. If it was just plain old jumps, it’d be just like any other week.”

___

Follow Jake Seiner: https://twitter.com/Jake_Seiner

Didn't expect to see Sumo (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?56343-Sumo) come up in the Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

This is in regards to the vid I tried to share earlier here (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics&p=1321579#post1321579).



Olympic martial artist knocks out opponent with kick, is disqualified from gold medal karate bout (https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/08/07/olympic-martial-artist-disqualified-gold-medal-karate/)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/NUPEMBXXSMI6XJRWDDFMLGUY3Q.jpg&w=916
Iran's Sajad Ganjzadeh, left, was awarded the gold medal after Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia left him unconscious with a high kick in the men's kumite 75-kilogram final. (Hedayatullah Amid/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
By Glynn A. Hill
August 7, 2021 at 4:53 p.m. EDT

In the final bout of karate’s Olympic debut, jubilation turned to dejection for Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia, whose first-minute knockout of Iran’s Sajad Ganjzadeh disqualified him in their gold medal contest Saturday.
Get the latest news and results from the Tokyo Olympics
Hamedi dominated in the early stages of the bout, which served as the final of the men’s kumite in the 75-kilogram division (about 165 pounds). He scored a three-point “ippon” (a technique considered to be a decisive blow) with a hooking kick less than 10 seconds into the fight and added a one-point “yuko” after he punched Ganjzadeh several seconds later.
Almost a full minute in, Hamedi held a 4-1 lead.
But just before that first minute expired, he connected on a high left kick to the head, sending Ganjzadeh to his back, unconscious.
Hamedi hopped into a quick skip and thumped his chest. Ganjzadeh seemed to scream as he went to the mat, and as the official began counting down, two medics ran over to treat him.
Ganjzadeh was motionless and medics placed an oxygen mask on his face before removing him on a stretcher. Hamedi, who initially seemed certain of victory — what would have been Saudi Arabia’s first Olympic gold medal in any sport — appeared apprehensive as officials conferred with each other.
Moments later, Hamedi was disqualified for a hansoku, a serious violation of the rules. The NBC television broadcast said he had unleashed an unchecked attack, following through on his strike as a mixed martial artist would, which is considered too dangerous by Olympic karate standards. Ganjzadeh, who was informed of the decision when he regained consciousness, was awarded the gold medal, and Hamedi was given silver.
Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia was disqualified from the Olympic karate final event when he knocked out Iran’s Sajad Ganjzadeh on Aug. 7. (IOC)
“I’m happy about the gold medal, but I’m sad that I had to win it like this,” Ganjzadeh later told reporters.
Hamedi, who fell to his knees in tears after the decision, later held up his silver medal on the podium, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ganjzadeh. After a series of photos, they embraced and Ganjzadeh raised Hamedi’s hand in the air. Turkey’s Ugur Aktas and Ryutaro Araga of Japan took the bronze medals in the event.
“If you ask me if I agree or not, I disagree, of course, because I love the gold medal,” Hamedi said through an interpreter. “But I am satisfied with the level of performance I gave, and I accept their decision. I don’t have any objection. I think I played well. That’s all I can say.”


threads
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

China boosts Olympic gold medal count by lumping in Hong Kong, Taiwan (https://nypost.com/2021/08/10/china-boosts-olympic-gold-medal-count-with-taiwan-hong-kong/)
By Yaron Steinbuch
August 10, 2021 11:46am Updated

The Olympics may be over, but Chinese state media is still going for the gold.

One of the communist country’s official outlets found a way to boost its nation’s second-place medal haul ahead of the leading United States, by including the medals won by Taiwan and Hong Kong in the tally, according to reports.

China Central Television listed the nation as having 42 gold medals under their inflated and inaccurate count, three ahead of the 39 that the US took home, and four more than China alone really took home, the Free Beacon reported.

The graphic circulated on Weibo, a local social media platform, according to the outlet.

The US also beat China in the other medal counts by winning 41 silvers to 32, 33 bronzes to 18, and an overall tally of 113 to 88.

https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/china-medals-47.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1535
China Central Television listed the nation as having 42 gold medals under their inflated and inaccurate count.
AFP via Getty Images
In addition to the news outlet, some Chinese social media users also clumped Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau on Weibo to give the enlarged “China” 42 golds, 37 silvers and 27 bronzes for a total count of 110, the Taiwan News reported.

Weibo-circulated graphic showing China's inflated medal count.

https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/china-medals-46.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1536
China’s inaccurate Olympic medal count circulated on Weibo.
“Congratulations to the Chinese delegation for ranking first in gold medals and the total number of points,” they wrote.

Last week, China Daily correspondent Chen Weihua posted of photo on Twitter of a tally showing the US ahead in the overall medal count — but behind China in gold.

“U.S. media always finds a way to put [the United States] on top,” he wrote, the Free Beacon reported.

https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/china-medals-48.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1536
The official and accurate Olympic medal count.
The International Olympic Committee requires Taiwan, which the Chinese Communist Party claims is part of China, to compete as “Chinese Taipei.” Announcers referred to the country as “Chinese Taipei” to appease Beijing.
We'll see how things go in 2022 (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68201-Winter-Olympics-2022).

[GeneChing]

The Olympics steamrolled Tokyo activists. Now LA residents are bracing for a fight (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/15/los-angeles-olympics-2028-housing-crisis)https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b23e1bfa9f8d8ef9eb47fda7c643b33f4e9430e6/0_0_1475_983/master/1475.jpg
Protesters demonstrate outside the Japan National Stadium before the closing ceremony of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. Photograph: Igor Belyayev/Tass
Plans for 2028 will exacerbate housing crisis – and low-income residents have no voice in the matter, tenant activists say
Liliana Michelena
Sun 15 Aug 2021 04.00 EDT
A few hours after the Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka lit the Olympic cauldron at the fairly downbeat Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony, a group of about 50 people crammed the backyard of a Los Angeles bookstore to celebrate their own “Nopening Ceremony”.

Under a banner that read “Olympics kill the poor”, local activists and scholars at the Echo Park venue took turns telling stories of Olympic-related displacement and gentrification they had witnessed in host cities past and present. The tales were meant to prompt the local residents in the audience to heed the warning: in a city like Los Angeles, already marked by a large unhoused population and a critical housing crisis, the 2028 Olympics may only exacerbate these problems.

Just as Tokyo 2020 marked the end of the Olympiad, the meeting was the end of a cycle for anti-Olympics groups in Los Angeles, and the beginning of a new one. By their own timeline, they have only a couple more years to close the door on LA 2028. And while the specific strategies are still to be determined, they have not changed their general vision.

“No to the Olympics is no,” said Leonardo Vilchis, co-founder of the tenants group Unión de Vecinos (the Neighbors’ Union). “We are not going to negotiate our defeat. Instead, we will act aggressively to stop things from happening.”

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6eff1b2d08b6f7252147380d13d32ff197962314/0_251_7522_4514/master/7522.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&
As Los Angeles grapples with a critical housing crisis, activists warn that the Olympics will make things worse. Photograph: Rob Latour/Rex/Shutterstock
Much of their strategy will be informed by the recent experience of Tokyo, where the International Olympic Committee (IOC) steamrolled opposition from local residents against the event. Under the contract to which the IOC, the city of Tokyo and the Japanese Olympic Committee agreed, people in Japan had no say on whether the event should go forward, nor any power to stop it in a case of changed circumstances, such as the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Up to 83% of respondents in a May 2021 survey by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said they didn’t want the Games to take place in Tokyo this year, a sentiment mostly driven by the pandemic.

Los Angeles is poised to host the Games under the same rigid terms imposed in the host city contract, which was signed in 2017 without public engagement and turns over the major calls to the IOC.

Vilchis sees similarities in the undemocratic nature of this imposition and is mostly concerned about the gentrification hosting the Games on those terms could sow. “It is people looking at the real estate, the government sweetening the deal and promoting these things supposedly for the benefit of a community that has no say in how this will impact them,” he said. Locally, his organization has been fighting such messaging in his neighborhood of Boyle Heights, where they have opposed coffee shops and art galleries purporting to “revitalize” the neighborhood.

“They basically came to increase property value and push out businesses for our lower-middle-income neighbors,” he added. “In cities like ours, there is already a tendency to displace poor people, to sacrifice them for projects that are supposed to benefit them, and all of this is accelerated by the Olympics.”

Cities bidding to host the Olympics often see them as boons to urban development, worldwide exposure and increased tourism revenue, a view endorsed by the IOC. That has proven not to be the case. In fact, costs tend to outweigh tangible benefits, and every Olympics since 1960 has gone over budget. With a conservative estimate of $15.4bn, Tokyo 2020 is already the most expensive Summer Olympics on record.

Jonny Coleman, member of the NOlympics LA coalition, argues Angelenos are in a much more vulnerable place than the citizens of Tokyo.

“The inequality here is way more extreme, and it’s a problem the city has been trying to handle – pointing rifles at people in tents in Venice Beach, changing the policy to criminalize homelessness, you can feel the pressure to do it,” he said.

Harrison Wollman, press secretary for the office of Mayor Eric Garcetti, said: “Los Angeles already has all the world-class stadiums, venues and infrastructure it needs to have a successful Olympics and Paralympics, so these upcoming Games won’t rely on any new developments.”

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e22cb39b597bf22b11c56e814c414e06d1d5c2e2/0_132_3960_2376/master/3960.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&
The Los Angeles Chargers practice at SoFi Stadium, which is expected to host the 2028 opening and closing ceremonies. Photograph: Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/Rex/Shutterstock
The prospect of the Olympics has already opened doors for development projects. SoFi Stadium, the multibillion-dollar development in Inglewood expected to host the 2028 Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies, has been driving rents up and low-income tenants out. Since 2016, the predominantly Black and Latino area has been the target of landlords and real estate developers seeking to profit from the presence of SoFi and the forthcoming new LA Clippers arena.

Across from the University of Southern California, Expo Park and the Banc of California stadium, a rent-controlled apartment complex is being demolished to make way for “the Fig”, a mixed-use development that will contain a hotel, student housing and residential housing. Citing a “need” for more hotels for the Olympics, the Los Angeles city council has approved taxpayer subsidies for the project.

“People want to see sports, but when you come into town and cause a tornado of destruction, people are going to rethink how it’s all coming through,” said Abdul Hood, a delivery driver and a regular at LA Tenants Union meetings. “We’re just in the way. They don’t care about us and they let us know that by the way they treat us,” he said.

“They need to stop planning around us and include us in the development plans,” he added. If not, he trusts the education of tenants and the articulation of similarly minded organizations across the city will “put a dent” in LA ’28. “We have a few years to battle with them.”

By Coleman’s account, they have until 2023. Partnered with other community action groups such as LA Can, Street Watch and Unión de Vecinos, NOlympics LA is spearheading the citywide resistance, retelling the story of 1984 and the irregular process that landed the city the 2028 Games when it had been bidding for 2024.

“The next couple of years are crucial to continue expanding our base,” he said. “The groundwork is being laid, the policy has to be set at a certain point, and then it becomes extremely difficult to push it out.”

Coleman concedes that “there are still a few Olympic diehards” in LA politics, but he sees an opening with local elections looming and the impending departure of the mayor, a primary proponent of the LA 2028 bid.

“I think they’ve seen what’s going on in Tokyo and maybe do not want to die on this hill and don’t want it to come back on them.”

threads
Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)
2028-Los-Angeles-Olympics (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70022-2028-Los-Angeles-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

I didn't know Coach Leach but I knew of him. My friends in the fencing circles have been posting memorials - they're shocked and heartbroken.



Olympic Team Coach Buckie Leach Passes Away (https://www.usafencing.org/news_article/show/1178807)
08/15/2021, 6:15PM CDTBY NICOLE JOMANTAS

https://cdn4.sportngin.com/attachments/photo/42f7-162341179/IMG_8273.jpeg
Coach Buckie Leach at the 2019 Senior World Championships with Nzingha Prescod, Jackie Dubrovich, Nicole Prescod and Lee Kiefer after the team's bronze medal win.
https://cdn3.sportngin.com/attachments/text_block/7154-162341749/SFA_0038_copia_large.jpg
Five-time Olympic Coach Buckie Leach.
(Colorado Springs, Colo.) – USA Fencing is heartbroken at the loss of Anthony “Buckie” Leach (Mt. Sinai, N.Y.) – one of the sport’s longtime Olympic coaches who led the U.S. Women’s Foil Team at the 1996, 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games.

A 2013 inductee into the USA Fencing Hall of Fame, Leach passed away on Saturday night at the age of 62 following a motorcycle accident on a cross-country road trip after his return from the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Leach is credited with building the U.S. Women’s Foil Team’s success over nearly 30 years, including four medals at the Senior World Team Championships, including the squad’s first Senior World title in 2018. He also coached more than a half dozen personal students to Olympic berths as well as foil fencers to Senior, Junior and Cadet World titles.

Leach’s students reached new heights in any weapon for USA Fencing during the 1990s when Iris Zimmermann (Rochester, N.Y.) became the first U.S. fencer to win a Cadet World Championship in any weapon, taking gold at age 14 in 1995, followed by a Junior World title in 1999 and earning the first medal at the Senior World Championships for a U.S. fencer in any weapon with a bronze medal the same year. Zimmermann’s older sister, Felicia Zimmermann (Rochester, N.Y.), became the first U.S. woman to win the Overall Junior World Cup title and went on to compete in two Olympic Games, making her debut in 1996 and competing with Iris in 2000. Ann Marsh-Senic (Royal Oak, Mich.) earned a seventh-place finish at the 1996 Games with her Atlanta Games teammate, Suzie Paxton (Brooklyn, N.Y.), rising to a top-eight world ranking during her career.

In 2000, Leach coached Team USA to a fourth-place finish at the Sydney Olympic Games, missing bronze by just two touches. The U.S. Women’s Foil Team avenged the loss in 2001, winning bronze with an all-star lineup that included the Zimmermanns as well as Marsh-Senic and Erinn Smart (Brooklyn, N.Y.) who would go on to win silver with Team USA at the 2008 Games.

A coach at the Fencers Club from 2001-2016, Leach’s personal students also included two-time Olympian Nzingha Prescod (Brooklyn, N.Y.) who won gold at the 2011 Junior World Championships and became the first Black woman to win an individual medal at the Senior World Championships with her bronze in 2015.

The U.S. Women’s Foil Team had its most successful quadrennium in history from 2017-21, earning three straight medals at the Senior World Championships, including gold in 2018, silver in 2017 and bronze in 2018. Last month, the squad narrowly missed the podium with Lee Kiefer (Lexington, Ky.), Sabrina Massialas (San Francisco, Calif.), Nicole Ross (New York City, N.Y.) and Jackie Dubrovich (Riverdale, N.J.) placing fourth at the Tokyo Games.

After coaching his fourth Olympic Games in 2016, Leach joined the Notre Dame coaching staff beginning in the 2016-17 season. During his five seasons as an assistant coach at Notre Dame, Leach’s students won 12 individual medals at NCAAs, including five out of 10 possible gold medals in the individual foil events, with the Fighting Irish winning the team titles in 2017, 2018 and 2021. Among the athletes Leach coached in South Bend were U.S. Olympic Fencing Team members Kiefer, Massialas and Nick Itkin (Los Angeles, Calif.) Kiefer, who won Team USA’s first-ever Olympic title in women’s foil just three weeks ago, won four straight NCAA titles for Notre Dame with her final gold coming in 2017. Itkin claimed back-to-back titles in 2018 and 2019 and earned bronze in Tokyo with the men’s foil squad. Massialas won silver at the 2018 NCAAs and competed in the women’s foil team event in Tokyo. Two-time NCAA individual medalist Amita Berthier also made her Olympic debut in Tokyo, competing for Singapore.

threads
Fencing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?9851-Fencing)
Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)

[GeneChing]

Cruel and random modern pentathlon should replace horses with climbing (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/18/modern-pentathlon-horse-punch-olympics-changes-tokyo-2020?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1)
The current format does not do athletes or animals justice. Replacing showjumping with climbing would be a solution

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cee411c9f890e0cab488363b9ad96a28ef58f857/0_122_3500_2100/master/3500.jpg
Annika Schleu struggles to control Saint Boy during the showjumping event at the Tokyo 2020 modern pentathlon. Photograph: Iván Alvarado/Reuters
Beau Dure
Wed 18 Aug 2021 05.00 EDT

Imagine training for countless hours for many years to reach the Olympics in rowing. You’re slotted into the pairs event. One hitch – your partner will be determined by random draw. You look over and see one of your rivals paired up with a world champion. Your partner, on the other hand, isn’t sure which end of the oar goes in the water.

Perhaps the equestrian phase of the modern pentathlon, in which athletes are assigned mounts by draw from a pool of horses, isn’t quite so extreme. The horses should all be able to jump over things, at least, so organizers aren’t just borrowing animals from any family that likes to ride around a bit. They just haven’t had much time to bond with the athletes who are randomly assigned to them after they’ve finished fencing and swimming.

But the disparity in allocated horses is vivid. In 2008, young American pentathlete Margaux Isaksen kissed her horse after a solid ride in Beijing. In Tokyo, coach Kim Raisner punched a horse that had brought German athlete Annika Schleu to tears as battled to control the animal, knowing she was about to fall from first to 31st.

It wasn’t quite Mongo in Blazing Saddles, but the whipping and punching were certainly enough to make Peta call for modern pentathlon to leave things up to the humans rather than bringing in animals who never signed up for this.

Even without the animal-rights aspects, show jumping is an odd fit for a multidisciplinary test of athletic prowess. Schleu is perfectly capable of riding other horses, as she has shown in a stellar international career. She had a nearly perfect ride when she took silver in the 2018 modern pentathlon world championships and again a few months ago when she finished fourth in this year’s worlds. But in the Olympics, she was stuck with a horse who was having none of it, and her medal hopes went down the drain.

Fellow German Isabell Werth, a seven-time Olympic champion in the horse-specific event of dressage, has seen enough of the animals in modern pentathlon. “You could just as easily give them a bike or a scooter,” Werth told German news agency SID.

Scooters in particular seem unlikely to be added, but modern pentathlon’s efforts to modernize are ongoing. As recently as 1992, the event took place over five days. In 2012, the sport combined the shooting and running, mimicking biathlon. This year, the bulk of the fencing was done separately, but the swimming, a fencing bonus round, the riding and the laser run were all conducted in Tokyo Stadium, which also hosted some soccer and rugby during the Games.

It’s a pity fans weren’t allowed in to see a truly unique competition that included the construction of an outdoor short-course pool, but it was also a bit artificial. Fans who turned up to the stadium would not have seen the fencing “ranking round,” which in the women’s competition had already separated contenders from the field with a 150-point disparity between first and last. The swimming phase didn’t shake up the standings that much, and the fencing “bonus round” awarded no more than six points in a sport in which the winner wound up with 1,385.

By 2024, they plan to go even further. The plan is to take a sport that once took five days and condense it to 90 minutes.

A lot of the changes have indeed made things better. Decathlon and heptathlon should look into the laser run’s handicap start – the more points you have, the earlier you start the run – that means the first person across the finish line has won gold.

But condensing the event to 90 minutes doesn’t solve the sport’s biggest problem, which reared its ugly head in Tokyo. It’s the horses. They might as well acknowledge that the horse draw is a lottery and replace it with a 21st-century corollary like scratch-off tickets.

Rewind a bit. The genesis of the modern pentathlon is a scenario based around the attributes needed by a 19th-century cavalry officer. A soldier needs to escape the enemy by shooting and sword-fighting, then riding an unfamiliar horse, swimming across a river and running to safety. The scenario is certainly dated – a modern soldier probably isn’t carrying an epee – but organizers can try to keep up the narrative while replacing the horses.

Given the popularity of esports and the importance of technology in the modern military, maybe a round of Call of Duty would work. But we have other choices that are already on the Olympic program.

The bevy of combat sports – boxing, wrestling, taekwondo, etc – might be redundant and impractical. Karate’s Olympic tenure might be brief, anyway, as the “I can hit you softer” discipline of kumite doesn’t play well with a viewing audience accustomed to MMA.

Instead, we could look at the “escape” aspect of the soldier’s saga. Escaping on a skateboard or surfboard seems unlikely, and surfing would ruin the sport’s aspirations of taking place in one venue, anyway. Canoe/kayak and rowing also would be difficult logistical fits. Cycling could be a viable option, maybe with a time trial around a miniature cross-country course.

The best choice, though, is one of the newer, youth-oriented sports in the Olympics. No, not breakdancing.

Sport climbing.

It fits both the sport’s narrative (an escaping soldier could conceivably have to scale a cliff) and its overarching goal of testing overall athleticism. Then one option could be to commandeer a fitness center for the swimming, fencing and climbing, then move to a nearby park for the run and shoot.

Even better: Add climbing walls to the run-and-shoot course.

Even better: Have a triathlon-style transition from swimming to the running/shooting/climbing race.

Of course, none of the top athletes at the moment are elite climbers and it would be unfair to expect them to master the sport before the next Olympic cycle, so the changes could be phased in slowly starting with junior events in the next few years, ready for a full introduction at the 2028 or 2032 Games. In a sport that is often decried as elitist it would also open doors for more participants. Sure, learning to climb isn’t cheap, but it’s a hell of a lot more accessible for the average kid than showjumping.

Any of these options, though, are better than watching an interspecies conflict that’s uncomfortable to watch and places much of an athlete’s chance of winning on the luck of the draw.

I heard Kaley Cuoco offered to buy that punched horse.

threads
Fencing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?9851-Fencing) because we don't have a pentathlon thread.
Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics)