'United by Emotion' was revealed as the motto for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics on Monday as organisers look to hammer home the message of diversity and inclusion. Tennis player Naomi Osaka, who was born in Japan to a Haitian father and Japanese mother but raised in the United States, narrated the motto's promotional video.
Dozens of Japanese towns have abandoned plans to host Olympic athletes because of concern they will overburden stretched medical resources amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections.
The 36-year-old Jhajharia, who is the first Indian to win two Paralympic gold medals, was the first choice of the awards selection committee.
'I hope that younger people who have similar struggles can see me and feel safer in the fact that I'm managing okay. True, there are difficulties, but there's nothing unfortunate at all about being both deaf and transgender.'
Queen Elizabeth, who celebrates 60 years on the throne this year, will open both the London Olympics and Paralympics, Buckingham Palace and organisers said on Wednesday.
The IOC will hold discussions that will include an option of putting back the July 24 start date or even moving the Games by a year or more due to the global coronavirus outbreak, but said cancelling the Games would not solve problems or help anybody. They have raised several issues in the past week with the IOC, including athletes' inability to prepare due to restrictions caused by the virus and their overall safety.
The Chinese Olympic Committee is unlikely to follow the example of their Canadian counterparts and withdraw from this summer's Tokyo Olympics, a former high-ranking official was quoted as saying on Monday as opposition to holding the event grows.
Participants will need to be masked, socially distanced from each other and not cheer out loud, organisers said
During the ancient Olympic Games, athletes who emerged victorious were awarded 'Kotinos' or olive wreaths
In other India-related news, Manish Kaurav (KL3 men 200m) and Manjeet Singh (VL2 men 200m) made it to the finals of their respective events for the first time in the history of the tournament.
Australian Olympic officials say they will oppose plans to stage the 2016 Rio Olympics swimming finals late at night.
Facing criticism for packing 22 tournaments in five months in its revised calendar, the Badminton World Federation on Wednesday said the disrupted Olympic qualification process will restart only next year with players having the benefit of holding on to the ranking points they have already secured.
The once-delayed Games are due to start on July 23
Some 340 Japanese children will be unable to participate in the Olympic torch ceremonies for the handover in Greece and arrival in Japan due to precautions being taken against the spread of the coronavirus, Tokyo 2020 chief Yoshiro Mori said on Friday.
15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for the banned heart medication trimetazidine in a sample collected on Christmas Day
Table tennis player Manika Batra, who will be conferred with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award this year, said that the accolade would spur her to bring more laurels for the country.
Although the change will have no immediate effect on current bans on the Russian federations for athletics, weightlifting and paralympics, it opens the door for their return, following the reinstatement of the Russian Olympic Committee after the country was banned from this year's Winter Games in South Korea.
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee Andy Roddick said on Saturday he was honoured to have played in the era of the Big Four, but also acknowledged that they caused him no end of frustration during his career.
Infuriated over Khel Ratna snub Paralympian Deepa Malik gets Haryana CM backing 'And I am not lobbying for it. Lobbying is when you try to influence people before the committee sits and decide. When I found my name is not there, I wrote to the ministry, it's an appeal. I have got the backing of my state CM. Haryana is a sports conscious state. He (CM) also felt that I have been overlooked'
Team Taiwan won't be at Winter Games opening ceremony
In the absence of Paralympic gold medallist Devendra Jhajharia, Sundar, who had been disqualified from his event in Rio 2016 due to technical reasons, found redemption and took home the gold medal and the tag of world champion with a personal best throw of 60.36m.
Flag bearer Tek Chand will lead the Indian contingent -- India will be represented by 54 para athletes, the biggest ever contingent in the history of the Games.
The report comes after two members of the Ugandan Olympic delegation tested positive for the coronavirus last month upon arrival in Japan. One tested positive at Narita airport near Tokyo, but the remainder of the team was allowed to travel to a training site.
Sony Corp does not plan to renew its sponsorship contract with FIFA, the governing body for world football, as the Japanese electronics maker needs to prioritise its restructuring efforts, people familiar with the matter said.
With the year sprinting to a close, we bring you, in pictures, some of the best action from the sports world.
North Korea's representative at the International Olympic Committee said the country expects to send a figure skating pair to compete at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games in South Korea next month.
Besides the duo, 2017 World Weightlifting Champion in the 48kg category, Saikhom Mirabai Chanu and former Asian Games gold medallist tennis player Somdev Devvarman were conferred with the Padma Shri award.
David Brown, the world's fastest totally blind sprinter, has been accompanied every step of the way by his guide Jerome Avery but the coronavirus outbreak has forced them apart for the first time in six years of training and racing together. Many runners can continue training more or less as usual in this time of social and physical distancing but it is not so easy for those without sight, who run in tandem with their guide, their adjoining hands tethered by a 30cm (12 inch) band.
President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday gave away prestigious Padma awards to 89 winners at Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi.
Iran had one of the best moments of the Rio Olympics opening ceremony when archer Zahra Nemati carried the Iranian flag into the Maracana Stadium on Friday.
Ace Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat has become the first Indian to receive a nomination in the prestigious Laureus World Sports Awards to be held, in Monaco, on February 18.
If you thought archery required a steady hand then American Paralympian Matt Stutzman is ready to shoot an arrow through your preconceptions.
The International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government agreed last month to postpone the Games because of the global coronavirus outbreak. The costs of rearranging the Games and who will pay them have yet to be clarified by either the IOC or the Japanese government.
10 Interesting Glimpses from the French Open.
Tokyo 2020 organisers held an earthquake drill on Thursday at Ariake Gymnastics Centre, a newly built venue for next year's Olympics, to test their readiness
Several countries, including Israel and Denmark, said they would vaccinate their athletes and staff against COVID-19 ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, amid global debate over whether athletes should be given priority access in the rollout.
'The Olympic Spirit has been thrown to the wind in Xi Jinping's China.' 'The International Olympic Committee is ready to kowtow to totalitarian China,' notes Claude Arpi.
It was an extraordinary turnaround for an Olympics that was expected to be held without major issues by a country known for public safety and economic stability. It also revealed a fatal miscalculation by Japanese and IOC officials of public sentiment at a time of heightened fears over the coronavirus.
'I have grown up in an environment where the dominant narrative of Indian sporting achievement was -- We can't.' 'These achievers have fought hard, built on each other's body of work and knowledge, and have today changed the script to -- We can,' notes Rahul Dravid,cricketing legend.
The mayor of Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday regretted the assault by street criminals of an Australian athlete over the weekend but said that security would be stronger in the city by the time the Olympics begin on August 5.
