Olympics
Canada women’s football team coach, Priestman apologises for drone scandal, takes accountability
Suspended Canadian women’s soccer coach Bev Priestman apologised on Sunday to her players and the nation for the drone scandal that led to her exit from the Paris Olympics and dealt a blow to the team’s hopes of a repeat gold medal.
In her first public comments since Canada Soccer suspended her from the Games, Priestman said as the leader of the team she accepts accountability and plans to fully cooperate with the investigation.
“I am absolutely heartbroken for the players, and I would like to apologise from the bottom of my heart for the impact this situation has had on all of them,” Priestman said in a statement released by her lawyers.
“To Canada, I am sorry. You have been my home and a country I have fallen in love with. I hope you will continue to support these extremely talented and hardworking players, to help them defy all odds and show their true character.”
Earlier on Sunday, Sport Canada said it was withholding funding allocated for salaries of Priestman and two other suspended team officials, calling the drone scandal that has rocked the Paris Olympic soccer tournament an embarrassment to all Canadians.
Canada’s team were docked six points, while Priestman and officials Joseph Lombardi and Jasmine Mander were banned from any soccer-related activity for one year by FIFA.
“Using a drone to surveil another team during a closed practice is cheating,” Canada’s sport minister Carla Qualtrough said in a statement.
“It is completely unfair to Canadian players and to opposing teams. It undermines the integrity of the game itself.
“Given that the Women’s Program receives funding from Sport Canada, we are withholding funding relating to suspended Canada Soccer officials for the duration of their FIFA sanction.”
Sport Canada is in the process of determining the exact amount of funding to be withheld, the Minister’s office told Reuters in a statement, adding the withheld funding will not impact the overall available funding to the women’s program.
“There is a deeply concerning pattern of behaviour at Canada Soccer.” the statement said. “We must, and will, get to the bottom of this. This issue has caused significant distraction and embarrassment for Team Canada and all Canadians here in Paris and at home.”
Canada Soccer has said it was exploring how it could appeal the six-point penalty imposed by FIFA, which left Canada on minus three points in Group A with two matches left to play.
They are scheduled to face France later on Sunday.
Former Canada players are supporting the team.
“Furious. Fuming. Sad. Heartbroken. These players don’t deserve this,” former goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe, who helped Canada win gold in Tokyo, posted on X.
“They’ve been let down by so many of their own people, not just NT (national team) staff.”
Diana Matheson, who retired in 2020 after 206 appearances for the Canada, gave her full support to the team.
“I stand with the players. I’m with you. Canadians are with you. Last game, next game, all the games, we are right there with you,” she said.
-Reuters
Paris 2024 sold a record 12 million tickets for the Olympics and Paralympics, beating the Games record previously set by London 2012, organisers said on Sunday.
Some 9.5 million tickets were sold for the Olympics and 2.5 million for the Paralympics, which end on Sunday.
In 2012, London organisers set the record for the Paralympics with 2.7 million tickets sold but only 8.2 million were sold for the Olympics.
-Reuters
The French capital will pay tribute to Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set on fire by her boyfriend, by naming a sports facility in her honour, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday.
The marathon runner, who competed in the Paris Games last month died on Thursday, four days after she was doused in petrol and ignited by her boyfriend in Kenya, in the latest attack on a female athlete in the country.
The 33-year-old, who finished 44th in her Olympic Games debut, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in Sunday’s attack, Kenyan and Ugandan media reported.
“She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom, and it was in all likelihood her beauty, strength and freedom which were intolerable for the person who committed this murder,” Hidalgo told reporters.
“Paris will not forget her. We’ll dedicate a sports venue to her so that her memory and her story remains among us and helps carry the message of equality, which is a message carried by the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Cheptegei is the third prominent sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described Cheptegei’s death as a loss “to the entire region”.
“This is a critical moment— not just to mourn the loss of a remarkable Olympian, but to commit ourselves to creating a society that respects and protects the dignity of every individual,” Uganda’s Athletes commission Chair Ganzi Semu Mugula said on Friday.
-Reuters
Engineer’s descendants say French capital landmark ‘not intended as advertising platform’
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
The five rings – 29m (95ft) wide, 15m high and weighing 30 tonnes – were installed on the Eiffel Tower before the Paris Olympics opened on 26 July, and were expected to be taken down after the Paralympics’ closing ceremony on 8 September.
But Ms Hidalgo said she wanted to keep the interlaced rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red, symbolising the five continents.
She added that the current rings – each one measuring 9m in diameter – were too heavy and would be replaced by a lighter version at some point.
The Socialist mayor also claimed that “the French have fallen in love with Paris again” during the Games, and she wanted “this festive spirit to remain”.
Some Parisians as well as visitors to the French capital supported the mayor.
“The Eiffel Tower is very beautiful, the rings add colour. It’s very nice to see it like this,” a young woman, who identified herself as Solène, told the France Bleu website.
But Manon, a local resident, said this was “a really bad idea”.
“It’s a historic monument, why defile it with rings? It was good for the Olympics but now it’s over, we can move on, maybe we should remove them and return the Eiffel Tower to how it was before,” he told France Bleu.
Social media user Christophe Robin said Ms Hidalgo should have consulted Parisians before going ahead with her plan.
In a post on X, he reminded that the Eiffel Tower featured a Citroën advert in 1925-36.
The Eiffel Tower was built in1889 for the World’s Fair. The wrought-iron lattice tower was initially heavily criticised by Parisian artists and intellectuals – but is now seen by many as the symbol of the “City of Light”.
Ms Hidalgo, who has been running Paris since 2014, is known for her bold – and sometimes controversial – reforms.
Under her tenure, many city streets, including the banks of the river Seine, have been pedestrianised.
Last year, she won convincingly a city referendum to ban rental electric scooters. However, fewer than 8% of those eligible turned out to vote.
But both drivers’ groups and opposition figures attacked the scheme, saying the SUV classification was misleading as many family-size cars would be affected.
France’s Environment Minister Christophe Béchu said at the time that the surcharge amounted to “punitive environmentalism”.
And just before the Paris Olympics, Ms Hidalgo and other officials went into the Seine to prove the river was safe to swim.
-BBC
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