Category Archives: Sport

British Olympic silver medallist Chijindu Ujah suspended for doping violation

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  • Ujah was part of Team GB’s 4x100m relay team in Tokyo
  • 27-year-old and team face being stripped of medals

The British sprinter CJ Ujah has been provisionally suspended for an anti‑doping rule violation after testing positive for two banned substances after winning a silver medal in the 4x100m relay at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

The news means that the Team GB men’s 4x100m relay team all face being stripped of their medals, with Canada being upgraded to silver and China receiving bronze unless Ujah can adequately explain how the substances got into his body.

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Hansle Parchment thanks woman who paid for taxi to race where he won Olympic gold

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  • 110m champion struggled to make final after taking wrong bus
  • Local volunteer stepped in to pay for taxi to Olympic Stadium

Jamaican hurdler Hansle Parchment has tracked down and thanked a Tokyo 2020 volunteer who paid for his taxi to the Olympic Stadium, where he subsequently won a gold medal.

Parchment told the story in a video posted to social media last weekend, which ended with him meeting the volunteer, whom he called Tiana. He thanked her, showed her the gold medal, gave her a Jamaican Olympic shirt and paid her back the money she had lent.

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‘Perfect harmony’: Lionel Messi seals PSG move as he signs two-year contract

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  • Deal worth about €35m a year net and has option to extend
  • ‘I can’t wait to set foot on the Parc des Princes pitch’

Lionel Messi will be presented as a Paris Saint-Germain player on Wednesday after signing a two-year contract. The deal includes an option to extend by a year and gives the forward a net salary of about €35m (£29.6m) with bonuses factored in.

Related: The little devil who became a deity: Messi exit leaves a void like no other

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Handball chiefs urged to resign over bikini bottoms rule

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Women’s sports associations accuse heads of IHF and EHF of ‘blatant sexism’ after Norwegian team fined

Women’s sports associations across Europe have called for the resignation of the presidents of both the international and European handball federations, accusing them of “blatant sexism” for rules that require female players to wear bikini bottoms.

The Norwegian women’s beach handball team was fined €1,500 (£1,270) for wearing shorts in protest against the rule during a European Beach Handball Championships match against Spain in Varna, Bulgaria, on 19 July.

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Support for Japan’s PM reaches all-time low over Covid-19, despite Olympics success

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Public support for Yoshihide Suga’s cabinet dipped below 30%, despite widespread support for going ahead with the Games

Public support for the government of Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has slumped to an all-time low, despite evidence that most people support the decision to go ahead with the Tokyo Olympics during the coronavirus pandemic.

Suga had been hoping to bask in the afterglow of the Games, which ended on Sunday, but support for his cabinet has dipped below 30% for the first time since he became prime minister last September, largely over its response to a recent surge in infections.

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Team GB chief hails ‘greatest achievement in British Olympic history’

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Mark England says fact team’s competitors delivered 65 medals in Tokyo ‘absolutely extraordinary’

Team GB’s trailblazing performance in Tokyo has been hailed as “the greatest achievement in British Olympic history” after the young team matched the tally of medals from London 2012 on the final day.

With Jason Kenny successfully defending his keirin title to become the first Briton to win seven Olympic gold medals, and boxer Lauren Price also winning middleweight gold, the British team ended fourth in the medal table with 65 overall – 22 of them gold.

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Tokyo 2020 Olympics: cycling, boxing and more on final day – live!

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Men’s keirin - Kenny (GBR) rode a superb race to nick the semi on the line. Glaetzer (AUS) defended his place well throughout to come second. Both progress into the final. Carlin (GBR) misses out in fourth.

Men’s keirin - Semi-final time for the men’s keirin. Up first we have Glaetzer (AUS), Carlin (GBR), and Kenny (GBR) gunning for a spot in the top three in a field of six.

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Tokyo 2020 Olympics: China one-two in diving with Tom Daley bronze, cycling and more – live!

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Madison gold: Great Britain drop to third. Denmark 25, France 24, Great Britain 23. We have 77 laps to go.

Madison gold: France wins the sprint with 90 laps to go, taking five points. Denmark second with three, Great Britain third with two. The latter two teams share the lead on 22 points, France on 19.

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Chinese uproar as state TV host calls gold-medal winner a ‘manly woman’

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Shot put champion Gong Lijiao quizzed about boyfriends and settling down into ‘a woman’s life’

The Chinese state media channel CCTV has been roundly criticised after a TV anchor described an Olympic medallist as a “manly woman” and asked her if she had plans for “a woman’s life”.

Gong Lijiao, 32, won a gold medal in the women’s shot put on Sunday with a personal best of 20.58 metres. It was the first gold medal in a field event for any Chinese athlete ever, and the first gold for an Asian athlete in shot put.

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‘A violation’: football star recounts having to strip during match to prove she was female

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Tabitha Chawinga, a Malawi international who plays in China, has called for greater safeguards against abuse in her home country

The international footballer Tabitha Chawinga is calling on Malawi’s football authorities to introduce safeguards to protect women from abuse at all levels of the game.

Chawinga, who became the first woman from Malawi to sign for a European football team when she joined the Swedish club Krokom/Dvärsätts IF in 2014, said that she had been forced to strip in public during a match to prove she was female and was regularly trolled on social media about her looks.

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Tokyo 2020 Olympics: women’s football glory for Canada, GB golds and more – live!

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We are into sudden death. Jonna Andersson has her penalty saved and now Canada have the chance to win it.

And they do. Julia Grosso scores to give Canada gold!

Women’s football final penalty shootout.

WOW! The Sweden captain Caroline Seger had the chance to win it but she blasted her shot over the bar.

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Lionel Messi leaving Barcelona after ‘obstacles’ thwart contract renewal

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  • Messi has spent whole career at Spanish club and is free agent
  • Barcelona say La Liga regulations made new deal impossible

Barcelona have announced that Lionel Messi is leaving the club after “financial and structural obstacles” made it impossible to renew his contract. The forward, who has spent his whole career there, had been expected to re-sign after his deal expired in June.

“Despite FC Barcelona and Lionel Messi having reached an agreement and the clear intention of both parties to sign a new contract today, this cannot happen because of financial and structural obstacles (Spanish Liga regulations),” the club said.

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Belarus sprinter who fled to Poland tells compatriots ‘not to be afraid’

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Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has arrived in Poland under diplomatic protection after seeking help in Japanese airport

A Belarusian sprinter who took refuge in the Polish embassy to avoid being bundled on a plane back to Minsk has spoken out about her dramatic experience, telling Belarusians “not to be afraid and, if they’re under pressure, speak out”.

In her first press conference from Poland, where she arrived under diplomatic protection this week, the Olympic athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said she had decided not to return to Belarus after her grandmother told her by telephone that she had been slammed on television as a traitor and called “mentally ill” for criticising her coaches’ “negligence”.

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Saga of sprinter shows nothing in Belarus is outside politics

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Analysis: Krystsina Tsimanouskaya stunned, but Lukashenko regime’s brutal suppression of all criticism is proving pervasive

The saga of the sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has shown how the Belarusian government’s brutal suppression of all criticism has politicised the lives and actions of even those hesitant to openly oppose the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko.

“I am stunned that this situation has become a political scandal,” Tsimanouskaya said during a press-conference in Warsaw, where she arrived from Tokyo via Vienna on Wednesday. “This situation was only about sport … all that I wanted was for people to take responsibility.”

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Tokyo 2020 Olympics: athletics, basketball, GB’s 16th gold and more – live!

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In case you were hoping to see Katarina Johnson-Thompson on the podium in the heptathlon, she had to pull out of the event yesterday due to injury.

Related: ‘I wasn’t leaving in a wheelchair’: Johnson-Thompson on Olympics agony

The full story as Holly Bradshaw brings home another medal for Team GB.

Related: Holly Bradshaw takes unexpected Olympic pole vault bronze for Team GB

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Tokyo Olympics: men’s swimming marathon, Johnson-Thompson injured, more GB golds – live!

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Wellbrock is well away from the field and seems to be following the racing line well, with the rest of the pack well behind him. They probably think they know better than going off like that. This is a heroic choice of tactics.

Early doors in Tokyo, and off they go in the swimming marathon. A couple of swimmers stay back on the pontoon, and away they go. Germany’s Florian Wellbrock takes up the early pace around the red buoy with German colleague Rob Muffels for company. The water is still, like a millpond.

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Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Thompson-Herah completes double in 200m – live!

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Pole vault: Mondo Duplantis is trying to break his own world record of 6.18m. He’s had two attempts at 6.19m.

It looked as if he had done it first time round but he clipped the bar. He didn’t come close in his second attempt. Now for the third ...

The full story as Elaine Thompson-Herah becomes the first woman in history to retain the sprint double.

Related: Elaine Thompson-Herah strikes second gold of Tokyo 2020 in 200m final

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Italy celebrates ‘most beautiful day’ after double Olympic gold

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Tokyo Games wins in 100m and high jump in space of 11 minutes prompt outpouring of national pride

Stunned and ecstatic after claiming two gold medals in the space of 11 minutes, as Lamont Marcell Jacobs won the 100m final and Gianmarco Tamberi shared first place in the high jump, Italians have been celebrating a golden Sunday at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

“It is Italian sport’s most beautiful day,” said Giovanni Malagò, the president of the Italian Olympics Committee. “They have made history. Our grandchildren’s grandchildren will talk about it. This is better than the Eurocup,” he added, referring to Italy’s Euro 2020 football victory last month.

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Belarus sprinter faces long exile in Poland after seeking refuge

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Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has not directly criticised her government but her parents warned her not to return

Just two years ago, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was greeted by smiling Belarusian athletics and academic officials as she brandished a gold medal from the 2019 Summer Universiade, the young star’s greatest victory for her native Belarus yet.

Now that same bureaucracy is threatening to tear her life apart, as her coach and a delegation official warned a crying Tsimanouskaya on leaked audio that she was “caught in a spider’s web” and suggested that cases of “excessive pride” often lead to suicide.

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Will Taiwan’s Olympic win over China herald the end of ‘Chinese Taipei’?

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Victory in Tokyo has reignited debate over a decades-old compromise with the island’s goliath neighbour

In the hours between Taiwan winning gold and silver in Olympic badminton on the weekend, local courts in Taipei were packed with enthusiastic young players. The nail-biting matches had lit a fire of sporting patriotism – not least because both were against China, Taiwan’s goliath neighbour, which claims Taiwan as a province it must retake.

The doubles win by Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin was Taiwan’s second gold medal, after Kuo Hsing-Chun won in weightlifting, and added to its biggest medal haul in Olympic history. Taiwan sits 18th in the table. China is first. Nevertheless, social media was awash with celebrations.

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