Olympics
Kishane Thompson so close as Jamaica-US rivalry rumbles on
Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson came so close to emulating his compatriot Usain Bolt and becoming Olympic 100 metres champion on Sunday but American Noah Lyles denied him by a heartbeat.
Thompson led for most of the race and clocked the same 9.79 time as Lyles who won by five thousandths of a second in a photo finish after timing his dip to cross the line to perfection.
Even Lyles admitted he thought Thompson, who came into the final as the fastest man this year, had beaten him.
“He said, ‘Hey Kishane I thought you got it’ and I said, ‘I’m not sure’,” Thompson said.
“I wasn’t patient enough with myself to let my speed bring me at the line, in the position that I know I could have gone to, but I have learned from it.”
Asked if he thought the pair should share the medal, Thompson said: “I think the sport is too competitive, no offence to any other sport. It’s too competitive for us to share a gold medal.”
Thompson’s time – 9.789, against Lyles’ 9.784 – was two hundredths of a second off his personal best of 9.77 set in June.
The Lyles-Thompson showdown was the latest chapter in a sprint rivalry between the U.S. and Jamaica that has gripped the sport for almost two decades.
Bolt won three successive 100 and 200 metres Olympic golds, and Yohan Blake weighed in with a silver in 2012. In world championships, Bolt and Blake won four 100s in a row between from 2009 to 2015 while Bolt nailed four successive 200s and helped his country to four sprint relay golds.
It was a domination the United States could not match during the best part of a century as the sprint superpower, and with Jamaica’s women also routinely filling the top step of their podiums, the Caribbean nation was on top of the world.
Since Bolt’s retirement in 2017, however, Jamaica’s gold rush has dried up, and a succession of male sprinters have been built up as “the new Bolt”, a pressure they could surely do without.
“I know that Jamaica would have wanted me to get the gold, everybody loves winners,” Thompson said. “I would have loved to win today, but big up to the whole field.”
Fellow Jamaican Oblique Seville, who had beaten Lyles to win their semi-final on Sunday, was left in tears after finishing last, albeit in an impressive time of 9.91 seconds.
-Reuters
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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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday awarded a top state honour to an Olympic skeleton racer who was disqualified from the Winter Games for wearing a helmet commemorating athletes killed in the war with Russia.
Zelenskiy, speaking to Vladyslav Heraskevych on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, said he had great respect for “all the Olympians who supported you and your position.”
“Medals are important for Ukraine and for you, but it seems to me that the most important thing is who you are,” Zelenskiy said while presenting the racer with the Order of Freedom.
Heraskevych told the president the award was “huge” and that the athletes depicted on the helmet “deserve it even more. Because of their sacrifice, we can compete in the Olympics.”
Heraskevych, 27, was disqualified at the Winter Games in Italy on Thursday when the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation jury ruled that the helmet’s depiction of athletes killed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 breached rules on political neutrality.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his appeal on Friday.
Heraskevych told reporters after the award ceremony that his disqualification was discriminatory as he had not violated the Olympic Charter, a document he said he “really valued.”
“But at the same time, I understand that this scandal has united people around the world about our problem and about the sacrifice of these great athletes, and I believe this goal is much more important than any medal,” he said.
Speaking before the CAS hearing earlier in the day, Heraskevych said his exclusion and rules imposed by the International Olympic Committee were “an instrument of propaganda for Russia. I still receive a lot of threats from the Russian side.”
-Reuters
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Ukraine’s skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Milano Cortina Winter Games on Thursday over the use of a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia, the International Olympic Committee said.
He was informed of his disqualification after a meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry early in the morning at the sliding venue.
His team said they would appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Coventry told reporters she had wanted to meet the athlete face to face in a last-ditch effort to break the impasse.
“I was not meant to be here but I thought it was really important to come here and talk to him face to face,” Coventry told reporters.
“No one, especially me, is disagreeing with the messaging, it’s a powerful message, it’s a message of remembrance, of memory.
“The challenge was to find a solution for the field of play. Sadly we’ve not been able to find that solution” she added, choking up.
“I really wanted to see him race, It’s been an emotional morning.”
The IOC offered him the opportunity to display his “helmet of remembrance” depicting 24 images of dead compatriots before the start and after the end of Thursday’s race at the Games, while also allowing him to wear a black armband while competing.
“I am disqualified from the race. I will not get my Olympic moment,” said Heraskevych.
The skeleton competition starts later on Thursday.
-Reuters
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