Olympics
BARCA’S LEAD SPONSORS’ RAKUTEN’S CHIEF DESCRIBES TOKYO 2020 AS A “SUICIDE MISSION”
Rakuten chief executive Hiroshi Mikitani has described staging this year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo as a “suicide mission” and urged organisers to cancel the event.
Rakuten Group, Inc., stylized as “Rakuten”, is a Japanese electronic commerce and online retailing company based in Tokyo, and are sponsors of FC Barcelona.
The head of the Japanese online retailer claims the “risk is too big” to host the Games during the coronavirus pandemic which continues to cause havoc in countries across the world.
A petition calling for the cancellation of Tokyo 2020 gained 350,000 signatures in just nine days, mounting further pressure on organisers to pull the plug on the Games.
Coronavirus cases continue to rise in Tokyo which remains in a state of emergency, while Japan has vaccinated just three per cent of its population.
Mikitani, the billionaire businessman who founded Rakuten in 1997, says he is mystified why the Japanese Government is pushing ahead with plans to host the Games this year.
“I have been very straightforward about this issue,” Mikitani told CNN.
“The fact that we are so late for the vaccinations, it’s really dangerous to host the big international event.
“The risk is too big and I am against having the Tokyo Olympics.
“I call it a suicide mission to be honest.
“I am trying to convince them [the Japanese Government] but no success so far.”
Mikitani said “everything is possible” when asked whether the Games could be cancelled with fewer than three months to go.
The Olympic Opening Ceremony is scheduled for July 23.
“I probably talk with many Government officials from other countries and many people are not really supportive of hosting the Tokyo Olympic this year,” said Mikitani.
Mikitani said his biggest concern was the potential emergence of new coronavirus variants coming into Japan.
“There are so many variants around the world,” said Mikitani.
“Some of them we know, some of them we might not know and then we are going to mix up all these people from over 100 countries [in Tokyo].”
A series of measures are set to be put in place at Tokyo 2020 in a bid to mitigate the risk of COVID-19.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe recently expressed confidence that the Games can be held safely after claiming participants will be “hermetically sealed from local people”.
Coe travelled to Tokyo for the Ready Steady Go athletics test event at the National Stadium, which involved 420 competitors including nine foreign athletes.
But Mikitani insisted it was “not a time to celebrate” due to the global health crisis.
“I think it’s difficult,” said Mikitani.
“I think they should just cancel.”
Mikitani also revealed several other business leaders in Japan had expressed their concerns to him over Tokyo 2020 taking place.
“When I talk with them privately, they agree with me, but I think there is a social and political pressure to not raise their voice,” added Mikitani to CNN.
High-profile Japanese athletes like Masters golf champion Hideki Matsuyama and women’s tennis star Naomi Osaka have expressed concern over the Olympics going ahead during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sapporo, host of the marathon and race walk events at Tokyo 2020, has recently been brought into an expanded state of emergency in Japan.
The Japanese Government has extended the current state of emergency, which means tighter COVID-19 restrictions, to include the Hokkaido, Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures.
The three regions join Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Aichi and Fukuoka in being placed under tougher measures, scheduled to be in place until May 31.
More than 11,000 people have died from coronavirus in Japan since the pandemic began last year.
Organizers of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games unveiled the event’s official visual identity on Monday, a floral-themed design system meant to reflect the city’s landscape, neighbourhoods and cultural character.
The branding will appear across competition venues, fan areas, citywide installations, signage, digital platforms and broadcast presentations during the Games, LA28 said.
At the centre of the design is the “Superbloom,” a reference to the bursts of wildflowers that can blanket parts of Southern California after periods of rain.
LA28 said the concept was intended as a metaphor for the Games, with years of preparation culminating in a short, high-profile global event.
The core graphic is built around 13 individual blooms, which organizers said represent different elements of Los Angeles, from its entertainment culture to its neighbourhoods, people and native landscape.
The colour palette draws on the Bird of Paradise, the official flower of Los Angeles, and is grouped into four families – Poppy, Scarlet Flax, Bluebell and Sagebrush – to evoke the region’s terrain and vegetation.
Organizers said the typographic style was inspired by Los Angeles street signage, including strip mall and hand-painted storefront lettering, in an effort to give the identity a distinctly local feel.
LA28 said the design was developed to work across a wide range of settings, from nearly century-old venues to new facilities, while also accounting for broadcast requirements, digital formats and lighting conditions. The organising committee partnered with design studio Koto on the project.
The identity was unveiled more than two years before the Olympic opening ceremony in what organizers described as an unusually early rollout, allowing partners and stakeholders more time to incorporate the branding into their materials.
Los Angeles will host the Olympics for a third time in 2028, after staging the Games in 1932 and 1984. It will also host the Paralympics for the first time.
-Reuters
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Organisers of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics said on Monday that registration for the first ticket draw will close on March 18, as the Games begin to take shape with the first baseball qualifiers confirmed and the soccer tournament schedule expanded.
More than five million fans from 197 countries and territories have registered at tickets.la28.org since January for a chance to buy tickets, LA28 said, underscoring strong early demand for the Summer Games, which are due to open on July 14, 2028.
Fans who register by the March 18 deadline will be eligible for a lottery to receive a purchase window for the first ticket release, scheduled for April 9-19.
There will also be a local presale running from April 2-6 for eligible residents in parts of Southern California and Oklahoma. Oklahoma City will host softball and canoe slalom.
LA28 said selected applicants would be notified by email between March 31 and April 7. Fans picked for the first sale window will be able to buy up to 12 tickets for Olympic events, subject to availability, with a four-ticket cap for each of the opening and closing ceremonies.
BASEBALL RETURNS
The ticketing update comes as the first teams booked places in the Olympic baseball tournament through the 2026 World Baseball Classic. The Dominican Republic and Venezuela secured qualification spots from the Americas, joining host United States in the six-team field.
Baseball, one of the sports added to the LA28 programme, will return to the Olympics for the first time since the Tokyo Games and will be played at Dodger Stadium from July 13-19. The remaining three places will be decided through international qualifying tournaments in 2027 and 2028.
LA28 also confirmed that the Olympic soccer tournament will begin on July 10, four days before the opening ceremony, following a decision by the International Olympic Committee Executive Board to extend the competition window.
Organisers said the longer schedule would give teams two additional rest days compared with previous Games.
Group-stage and quarter-final matches will be staged in seven U.S. cities – New York, Columbus, Nashville, St. Louis, San Jose, San Diego and Pasadena – with the men’s and women’s gold medal matches to be played at the Rose Bowl.
LA28 said kickoff times and the full schedule would be released later this year.
-Reuters
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Athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Games have raced through their free condom supply ahead of Valentine’s Day, leaving dispensers empty on Saturday, with more than a week of competition remaining.
According to a report by Reuters, organisers had distributed around 10,000 condoms across the city and mountain accommodation sites, continuing a long-standing Olympic tradition aimed at promoting safe relationships among competitors living in close quarters.
By Saturday, however, supplies had run out — adding Milan to a growing list of Olympic hosts where demand has comfortably exceeded expectations.
“Clearly, this shows Valentine’s Day is in full swing at the village,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference. “Ten thousand have been used — 2,800 athletes — you can go figure, as they say.”
Adams added with a smile: “It is rule 62 of the Olympic Charter that we have to have a condoms story. Faster, higher, stronger, together.”
Milano Cortina organisers later acknowledged that stocks had been depleted due to “higher-than-anticipated demand,” but assured that additional supplies were already on the way.
“Additional supplies are being delivered and will be distributed across all Villages between today and Monday,” organisers said in a statement. “They will be continuously replenished until the end of the Games to ensure continued availability.”
The unexpected shortage also surprised some athletes.
Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo said he had only just heard about the situation. “I just saw that this morning. I was, like, shocked as everyone else,” he said.
Mialitiana Clerc, an alpine skier representing Madagascar, noted that boxes once placed at building entrances were quickly emptied.
“There were a lot of boxes at the entrance of every building where we were staying, and every day, everything had gone from the boxes,” Clerc said. “I already know that a lot of people are using condoms, or giving them to their friends outside of the Olympics, because it’s a kind of gift for them.”
While medals remain the official measure of achievement at the Games, the empty dispensers suggest that the social side of the Olympics is also proceeding at full pace.
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