Emergency measures expanded to cover more than half of Japan’s population
A dramatic rise in coronavirus cases in Tokyo has reignited speculation about the Olympic Games, which are due to open in the city in just over six months’ time.
Japan widened its coronavirus state of emergency to cover more than half the country’s population on Wednesday, as surging infections sparked warnings of intense pressure on hospitals.
Continue reading...In the intimidating and macho world of big-wave surfing, Brazilian Maya Gabeira is breaking male and female records – and challenging the sport’s testosterone-fuelled identity
The thing that struck Maya Gabeira was the sound. “I had never heard anything similar: it was the first affirmation that that was the biggest wave I had ever ridden,” she says. “It was just ‘phwoooaaaarrrrrrr.’” She mimics a bomb exploding in her hands. There was also a continuous “Brrrrrrrrrrrrr,” she says, like a deep engine humming – the sound of tonnes of water falling, falling, falling from a great height. “It almost vibrates inside your body.”
The Brazilian big-wave surfer is reflecting on the events of 11 February 2020, when she rode a monstrous 22.4m (73.5ft) wave at Nazaré in Portugal. It set the world record for the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman. It was also the biggest wave surfed by anyone, male or female – the first time this feat has been achieved by a woman.
Continue reading...Burgeoning hopes for a normal sporting and cultural calendar are now in question again as infections increase
As Covid-19 cases rise across the world, hopes that life could get back to some semblance of normality by summer are fading. What chance do we have of going to a festival, flying off for a holiday or attending a major sporting event?
Continue reading...IOC’s Dick Pound voices concern after host city declared state of emergency due to third wave of coronavirus
Dick Pound, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee, has said he “can’t be certain” that the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games will go ahead this summer, as a coronavirus state of emergency was declared in the host city.
Asked about the prospects that the Games will open on 23 July, the Canadian told the BBC: “I can’t be certain because the ongoing elephant in the room would be the surges in the virus.”
Continue reading...The International Olympic Committee is working on ways to get athletes the coronavirus jab in the second or third wave so that the Tokyo Games can go ahead safely in July, the Guardian has been told.
While insisting that we “do not want to queue jump”, IOC sources are hoping athletes from around the globe will be high up on the vaccination list, once key workers and the vulnerable are given the jab.
Continue reading...‘I bribed a stadium guard with whisky and got dead close just as he was lifted on to another player’s shoulders. It was like a biblical scene. He looked magnificent’
On the final day of exams at Edinburgh University in the summer of 1986, most students partied, but I flew directly to Mexico City. I was 20 years old and studying business and economics while taking photos on the side. I’d never been to the Americas before, and I wasn’t at all a good photographer; in fact, I was incredibly average.
I arrived at the 1986 World Cup under the guise of being a freelance photojournalist, but I was a Scotland fan first and foremost – they always used to say that Scottish journalists are just fans with typewriters. I did have a press pass that I’d managed to blag off the Times, which granted me access to the media pen, but I was much more interested in watching football than taking photographs of it. There was a moment in the first round of a match with Uruguay when Scotland missed an open goal. Back at the Times they were watching the TV coverage of the game and could see the striker with his head in his hands, and in the background me with my head in my hands and with my camera nowhere near the moment. And they thought: “Well this guy, Yarrow, he’s not focused on the task at all.”
Continue reading...From finally seeing the back of Donald Trump to being in a football stadium – the new year is full of promise
You probably found a few things to enjoy about last year: you rediscovered your bicycle, perhaps, or your family, or even both, and learned to love trees. And don’t forget the clapping. Plus some brilliant scientists figured out how to make a safe and effective vaccine for a brand new virus in record time.
Continue reading...The Rodgers and Hammerstein number became a football anthem via the late Gerry Marsden, bringing euphoric determination to every era of Liverpool FC from Shankly to Klopp
“It never stops creating goosebumps,” is how Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp describes it. “It never stops feeling really special.”
Our team’s anthem – Gerry and the Pacemakers’ You’ll Never Walk Alone – was not the reason Klopp came to Liverpool, but he’s talked about the moment he first heard it ringing out around the ground, and how that reassured him that he’d made the right choice to move to Merseyside. Indeed, if you could condense Klopp’s entire philosophy into one song – sticking together when times get tough, trust in the abilities of others, a conviction that better days are ahead – it would be You’ll Never Walk Alone. It’s been the club’s anthem since it topped the UK charts in 1963, providing joy and comfort during the triumphs and tragedies of the decades that have followed. Fans are now mourning the death, at 78, of the man who sang it – Gerry Marsden.
Continue reading...The Manchester United forward reflects on an extraordinary year where he improved the lives of millions of people – all, he says, inspired by his mother, Mel
The Guardian Footballer of the Year is an award given to a player who has done something remarkable, whether by overcoming adversity, helping others or setting a sporting example by acting with exceptional honesty.
Marcus Rashford is mulling over a quite extraordinary 2020 when his words and deeds have made him the only choice to be named as the Guardian’s Footballer of the Year. The Manchester United and England forward has excelled on the pitch, as usual, but the day job no longer defines him. How can it do so when he has done more than anyone to look after the poorest and most vulnerable children in the United Kingdom?
Continue reading...When Japanese and International Olympic Committee officials finally accepted defeat in March and postponed the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, there was general agreement that a one-year wait would give the world ample time to overcome the coronavirus pandemic.
The delayed Olympics, the then prime minister Shinzo Abe said, would be an opportunity to pay tribute to the human spirit in overcoming the world’s biggest public health crisis for a century.
Continue reading...Seven years ago, she was nearly killed in pursuit of the sport she loves, but she defied expert’s predictions and made a stunning comeback
In the photographs of her record-breaking ride, the Brazilian surfer Maya Gabeira is a tiny blade on the water, cutting a line of white spume down the deep ridge of the vast grey wave that climbs behind her. The wave in question measured 22.4 metres (73.5ft), the highest ever surfed by a woman, the first to be measured and verified by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and a couple of feet greater than the one surfed by her nearest rival. It is also the biggest wave measured this year, surfed by man or woman.
Gabeira, who broke her own previous Guinness world record of 68ft, attributes her achievement to what she calls “taking a critical line”. In short, she takes her board to the fiercest and tallest part of the wave, “where the most powerful energy is, where it is actually breaking”. This, she says, is how “you put value into your wave”.
Continue reading...A stunning 12 months for Lewis Hamilton on and off the track, which included equalling Michael Schumacher’s record of seven Formula One titles and becoming an increasingly powerful voice for diversity in his sport, has ended with a knighthood in the new year honours list. The 35-year-old becomes the fourth F1 driver to be knighted after two fellow Britons, Sir Stirling Moss and Sir Jackie Stewart, and Australia’s Sir Jack Brabham.
There had been a question mark over whether Hamilton, who also surpassed Schumacher’s record of grand prix victories in 2020, would be knighted given he lives in the tax haven of Monaco. But it was reported that the prime minister, Boris Johnson, had personally intervened to ensure Hamilton would be rewarded for his sporting achievements.
Continue reading...Hardcore group threaten boycott and hold protest at training session after Abu Dhabi sheikh buys 50% stake in top team
An Israeli premier league football team whose most hardcore fans chant “Death to Arabs” faces a crisis of introspection following a landmark deal that saw the club part-sold to an unlikely new owner: an Arab sheikh.
Beitar Jerusalem – the only Israeli team never to have fielded an Arab player – has been grappling with the news that, as of this month, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, now owns 50% of the club.
Continue reading...City’s murals of Maradona have become pilgrimage sites since footballer’s death in November
A month since the death of Diego Armando Maradona and the southern Italian city of Naples is looking more like a Maradonaland each day.
After renaming Napoli football club’s San Paolo Stadium and a train station in his honour this month, local authorities are planning a large museum, commissioning statues and dedicating an entire square to the Argentinian who took the city’s football team to glory and is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time.
Continue reading...Uganda has never acknowledged the sporting legacy of athlete ‘Sunlight’ Okiror. Almost 30 years after his death, his son hopes this might change
My father, Samson “Sunlight” Okiror, lived an extraordinary life. He was a soldier, a rebel and one of Uganda’s most famous sportsmen.
A wrestler and heavyweight lifter, he could lift a car off the ground. He could tie a rope to a Land Rover and stop it from moving when the engine was turned on. He could stretch steel chains and springs. He travelled across east Africa and to Europe to train and perform.
Continue reading...Martin Ødegaard and Eduardo Camavinga are new entries as we present the first 30 players of our list
Robert Lewandowski is our new No 1 while Erling Braut Haaland gatecrashes the top 10 at No 6
Fighters and coaches in mixed martial arts have propagated the popular conspiracy theory. The sport’s outsider origins may be to blame
There was anger on the streets of Huntington Beach.
At the intersection of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway near the picturesque pier, hundreds gathered on 30 November in defiance of California’s coronavirus curfew, which prohibits all “non-essential work, movement and gatherings” between 10pm and 5am until 21 December across most of the state. The so-called “curfew breakers” protest brought together a collection of coronavirus truthers, anti-maskers, and those who remain convinced that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Continue reading...Millions of frustrated sports fans began following Andrew Cotter’s ultra-competitive labradors Olive and Mabel in the first lockdown. Has it changed the trio’s lives?
Did anyone convey the topsy-turvy world of pandemic life better than two ultra-competitive labradors? When the first lockdown was announced back in March and sports events were cancelled across the country, the Scottish commentator Andrew Cotter found himself staring at a grim year ahead. And so he decided to simply continue commentating … on his dogs.
“You can feel the tension,” he said in his soothing soft Scottish accent, over a video of his dogs, Olive and Mabel, racing to empty their bowls. “Olive focused, relentless, tasting absolutely nothing.”
Continue reading...Starting with the singer’s 2006 debut, Corinthians have not lost a match either side of the release of any of her albums
Name: The Taylor Swift Rule.
Age: 14.
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