Olympics
BREAKDANCING MAY BECOME OLYMPIC SPORTS
Breakdancing, sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing have been touted as the favourites to be included as additional sports on the Olympic Games programme for Paris 2024.
French radio station France Info has claimed a final decision is expected to be made by organisers on Thursday (February 21).
This has reportedly been denied by Paris 2024.
Paris 2024 are due to submit their recommendations for new sports before the International Olympic Committee Executive Board is due to meet in Lausanne from March 26 to 28.
The IOC Session in June will then offer provisional approval before the new additions are officially confirmed by the Executive Board in December 2020.
Sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing were all included on the Tokyo 2020 programme as additional sports.
The trio are hoping to remain on the programme, along with baseball/softball and karate, which were also added by Japanese organisers.
Breakdancing’s prospects are believed to have been boosted by the sport’s appearance at the last year’s Summer Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires.
The Games in Argentina’s capital city marked breakdancing’s debut at an Olympic competition.
A proposal for breakdancing’s inclusion was put forward by the French Dance Sport Federation led by Charles Ferreira.
Breakdancing’s potential inclusion has earned criticism in some quarters, however, with a debate over who represents the sport emerging.
The World Dance Sport Federation (WDSF) were responsible for overseeing the sport’s inclusion at Buenos Aires 2018.
Erwin Mahroug, President of breakdancing media company bboyworld, has claimed the community have not been involved in any attempts to include it at Paris 2024.
The company, which claim they have over five million subscribers, helped in the selection of breakdancers at Buenos Aires 2018.
Mahroug wrote that the “breakin community was quite angry on how the Youth Olympic Games unfolded and voiced their negative opinion throughout various global media platforms”, adding that a lobbyist and owner of an investment company have been behind the effort.
“These two individuals have projected to the WDSF and the IOC that they are the voice of the breakin community,” Mahroug wrote.
“However, this is not the case.
“Up until the leak of the news that the IOC will be voting on whether breakin will be included in the 2024 Games, the breakin community has been in the dark.
“We will not engage, again, to support these two individuals.”
Mahroug claimed the break dancing community do not have a vote within any national governing body or the WDSF, while they claim to have no ability to present to the IOC.
A request to meet with the IOC to discuss the potential inclusion was suggested by Mahroug.
Other calls have been made for the breakdancing to potentially be included at 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, rather than having a potential debut in Paris.
The dispute over who represents breakdancing appears reminiscent of the fractious debate over skateboarding prior to its inclusion on the Tokyo 2020 programme.
The International Roller Sports Federation (FIRS) led skateboarding’s bid for inclusion, despite the International Skateboarding Federation (ISF) and the World Skateboarding Federation claiming to run the sport.
FIRS and ISF later merged to form World Skate, who are overseeing the sport’s debut at Tokyo 2020.
Squash is among the sports to have sought inclusion at Paris 2024.
Squash has campaigned for Olympic inclusion for some time, having been rejected for London 2012, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
Other sports to have already launched campaigns for inclusion include snooker, chess and the electric motorcycling format Trial-E.
- INSIDETHEGAMES.BIZ
Roy Jones Jr has been handed the Olympic gold medal he was controversially denied in 1988 in an extraordinary act of sportsmanship by the South Korean fighter who beat him.
Hall of Fame boxer Jones shared a video on Wednesday from two years ago that showed Park Si-hun visiting the American’s ranch in Pensacola, Florida to present him with the light middleweight gold medal.
“I had the gold medal, but I want to give it back to you. It belongs to you,” Park said in the video through his son, who translated.
Jones, who was overcome with emotion by the gesture, covered his face with his hand before saying: “Wow, that is crazy.”
Their match at the Seoul Olympics remains one of boxing’s most contentious moments as Jones appeared to dominate the fight but lost to Park by a 3-2 decision that drew instant criticism and sparked enduring controversy.
Despite losing the gold medal match, Jones was selected as the Val Barker Trophy winner as the best boxer of the 1988 Olympics.
Jones went on to become a four-division world champion and is regarded as one of the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighters of all time.
“In 1988, I was robbed of the gold medal in what became one of the biggest controversies in boxing history,” Jones wrote in his Instagram post.
“By the grace of God, a couple of years ago, the man who won that medal made the trip from South Korea to my home to return it to me, feeling it was rightfully mine.
“I hope you enjoy this moment as much as I did.”
-Reuters
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U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday creating a White House Olympics task force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, an administration official told Reuters.
The task force, made up of members from Trump’s cabinet and government agencies, will coordinate federal, state and local government work on transportation, the official said.
It also will “streamline visa processing and credentialing for foreign athletes, coaches, officials, and media,” the official said in an email.
The United States will host the Olympics in Los Angeles in three years. Trump, a Republican who lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, has expressed pleasure that his second term will coincide with the Olympics and the World Cup.
“During his first term, President Trump was instrumental in securing America’s bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The president considers it a great honor to oversee this global sporting spectacle in his second term,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Monday.
Last month organizers of the Los Angeles games released the first look at the Olympic competition schedule . The city had also hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984.
“The creation of this task force marks an important step forward in our planning efforts and reflects our shared commitment to delivering not just the biggest, but the greatest Games the world has ever seen in the summer of 2028,” Casey Wasserman, the chair and president of LA28, said in a statement.
–Reuters
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By DAVID LEE
Home is many places for swimmer Adaku Nwandu, who was born in China, lives in Singapore and wears the Nigeria flag on her swimsuit.
And it is at her current home in Singapore that the 17-year-old is making her debut at the World Aquatics Championships (WCH).
In the second heat of the 100m freestyle at the WCH Arena, the teenager, who has a Nigerian father and Chinese mother, led at the turn before finishing third in 1min 0.89sec – she eventually placed 59th out of 82 athletes overall.
After her race, Adaku shared with The Straits Times that she was born and raised in Shanghai, and started swimming when she was eight. Interestingly, it was ice cream that kept her in the sport.
Adaku, who still has the 50m freestyle heats on Aug 2, said: “At a school competition, I didn’t do so well and I asked my dad if we could make a deal. He said if I do better, he would buy me ice cream once every week, and that’s a promise we have kept with each other. And that’s what brought me here.”
In 2023, the family moved to Singapore due to her mother’s work posting. With her fluent Mandarin and love for Asian and spicy food, it did not take long for her to pick up Singlish and enjoy local delights like chicken rice and chilli crab.
She said: “We came here mainly because of my mother’s work, and also because the swimming scene back where I lived in China was a little bit toxic, so she also thought Singapore would be a new experience and better for my swimming.”
By then, she had already committed to representing Nigeria after its aquatics association contacted her after the National Sports Festival in Asaba, where the then 16-year-old was part of the national record-breaking women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team.
But Singapore is where she has been honing her swimming skills, as she has set her 50m and 100m freestyle long- and short-course Nigeria national records at meets here.
Noting her improvements, Singapore swimming coach and performance director Gary Tan said: “Adaku has been participating in our system for a while, and we hope it helps her develop as a swimmer and achieve what she wants while training in Singapore with her school (German European School Singapore).”
For someone who is inspired by Olympic champions David Popovici, Caeleb Dressel and Adam Peaty for “their dedication and the way they are able to take breaks for themselves to improve and get back to the water”, qualifying for Paris 2024 on ranking points was a dream come true.
Her Olympic debut was also unforgettable as her swimsuit ripped 20 minutes before her 50m freestyle heat, but she managed to finish second in her heat and 33rd out of 78th overall in 26.62 seconds, just 0.03 of a second off her personal best.
Back in Singapore, Adaku, who is in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme at her school, realised that she needed more of such resilience to reach her goals.
The swimmer, who also plays for the school’s volleyball team, said: “I had a lot of improvement the first year I came to Singapore. But this past year has been especially hard for me with family problems and also school. The workload in my first year of IB made it hard to balance training and school.
“Especially in the next year, I want to focus more on swimming and try to get some new personal bests because this year I just plateaued. I’m looking forward to training harder and preparing for my next competition and hopefully qualify for the next Olympics.”
-Strait Times, Singapore
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