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Sports Shorts: Pictograms unveiled 500 days before start of Tokyo 2020

March 12, 2019 11:43 IST

Tokyo Olympics

The pictograms for next year's Tokyo 2020 Olympics were unveiled on Tuesday at an event to mark 500 days to go until the Summer Games.

Pictograms for each sport, including the five new sports that will feature at Tokyo 2020, will feature on tickets, television graphics and venues and are one of the key visual elements of any Olympic Games.

 

Baseball and softball, karate, skateboarding, surfing and speed climbing will all feature at Tokyo 2020 as organisers target a younger audience.

When Tokyo last hosted the Summer Games in 1964, it was the first Olympics to include pictograms and they have featured at every Games since. The concept was introduced to make all sports easy to comprehend across the world.

"The sports pictograms were officially used for the first time at the 1964 Tokyo Games; Japanese designers, predecessors, pioneering designers, created this great legacy," explained designer Masaaki Hiromura.

"Having that as our starting point, for the Tokyo 2020 Games we wanted a more modern design, incorporating athletes' dynamism and trying to express their muscle movements, yet keeping it simple."

Organisers also used the opportunity to launch the Tokyo 2020 caravan project.

A promotional bus will travel across the three prefectures most deeply affected by the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami as Tokyo 2020 reflects the theme of 'reconstruction Olympics'.

The caravan will tour Tokyo before heading north to Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures.

Softball, the first event on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic schedule, will begin in Fukushima two days before the opening ceremony on July 24.

With 500 days to go until the start of the summer showpiece, organisers were confident that preparations are on schedule.

Most of the venues are 50-70 percent complete ahead of test events that will kick off in earnest this summer.

The new Olympic Stadium, which will host the opening ceremony, is scheduled for completion in November.

MMA fighter McGregor arrested in Florida after fan's phone smashed

Conor McGregor

IMAGE: Conor McGregor. Photograph: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports/Reuters

Conor McGregor was arrested in Miami Beach on Monday after a fan said the Irish mixed martial arts fighter smashed his phone and walked off with the shattered remains, police records show.

McGregor, 30, was booked into a correctional center on suspicion of robbery and criminal mischief, according to an arrest affidavit. The incident took place shortly after 5 a.m. (0900 GMT) on Monday.

McGregor was later released on a $125,000 bond, the Miami Herald reported.

Samuel Rabin Jr., a Miami-based attorney representing McGregor, said the fighter was involved in a "minor altercation involving a cellphone" and would cooperate fully with police, the Herald reported.

The arrest report, which did not identify McGregor by name, said "the victim attempted to take a picture of the defendant with his cell phone" outside a hotel.

"The defendant slapped the victim's phone out of his hand, causing it to fall to the floor. The defendant then stomped on the victim's phone several times, damaging it," the report said, adding that the device was valued at $1,000.

McGregor was charged in April 2018 with three counts of assault and one count of criminal mischief after police said he attacked a charter bus in New York carrying UFC fighters, .

He later pleaded guilty to a reduced disorderly conduct charge.

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