Category Archives: Olympic Games

French rail network hit by arson attacks before Olympics opening ceremony

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‘Massive’ coordinated attacks on TGV bring severe disruption to France’s busiest rail lines

France’s high-speed rail network has been hit by coordinated “malicious acts” including arson attacks that have brought major disruption to many of the country’s busiest rail lines hours before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

The state-owned railway operator, SNCF, said arsonists had targeted installations along the lines connecting Paris with the country’s west, north and east and that traffic would be severely disrupted across the country during the weekend.

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Friday briefing: How a doping scandal could overshadow the Olympics

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In today’s newsletter: As Paris gears up for the Games, the excitement is palpable, but concern about performance-enhancing drugs threatens the reputation of one of its sports

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Good morning.

The Olympics is here! Get ready for some truly awe-inspiring displays of athleticism. But there is also a scandal hovering over the Games in Paris that threatens to move focus away from the athletes.

Health | Wes Streeting has called England’s healthcare watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), “not fit for purpose” after an interim report found significant failings were hampering its ability to identify poor performance at hospitals, care homes and GP practices.

Budget | Rachel Reeves is expected to reveal a £20bn hole in government spending for essential public services on Monday, paving the way for potential tax rises in the autumn budget.

Israel-Gaza war | Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has pressed Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu on the “dire” humanitarian situation in Gaza in talks that she described as frank, adding “I will not be silent.”

Assisted dying | Keir Starmer is under pressure to fulfil a promise to allow a parliamentary vote on legalising assisted dying, as a bill is to be introduced into the House of Lords on Friday.

Police | A teenager who was kicked in the face by an armed police officer while lying prone on the ground is “traumatised” and receiving hospital treatment after the “barbaric” assault, his solicitor has said. Akhmed Yakoob said 19-year-old Muhammed Fahir was a victim of “police brutality” after footage showed an officer stamping on his head during an arrest at Manchester airport on Tuesday.

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French athlete may swap hijab for a cap to avoid Olympic opening ceremony ban

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Sounkamba Sylla reportedly reaches compromise after France’s strict laws on secularism threatened to bar her

A French sprinter is expected to swap her headscarf for a cap in order to participate in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics, in a compromise reportedly struck after the country’s strict laws on secularism threatened to bar her from the event.

Earlier this week Sounkamba Sylla, a Muslim member of France’s 400m women’s and mixed relay teams, said she would not be able to take part in Friday’s ceremony because she wears a hijab.

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Salt Lake City must lobby for end to FBI doping investigation in return for 2034 Winter Olympics

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  • FBI is looking into allegations of Chinese doping
  • French Alps given 2030 Winter Olympics

What was expected to be a simple coronation of Salt Lake City as the 2034 Winter Olympic host turned into complicated Olympic politics on Wednesday, as the IOC pushed Utah officials to end an FBI investigation into a suspected doping coverup.

In a separate decision earlier in Paris, the 2030 Winter Games were awarded – with conditions – to France for a regional project split between ski resorts in the Alps and Nice. That project needs official signoff from the national government which is still being formed after elections in France earlier this month.

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Snoop Dogg to carry Olympic torch on final stages through Paris

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US rapper will conclude torch’s relay through Saint-Denis and Olympic Village to mark start of 33rd Games

Snoop Dogg will carry the Olympic torch through the final stages when it passes through Paris before the opening ceremony on Friday.

The US rapper will be hoping he won’t Drop It Like It’s Hot when he holds the torch in Saint-Denis to mark the start of the 33rd Games.

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Centrist government to remain in power until after Paris Olympics, says Macron

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France’s president says delay is to avoid disorder, after leftist coalition announces Lucie Castet as its pick to become PM

Emmanuel Macron has said he will maintain the country’s centrist caretaker government until the end of the Olympic Games in mid-August to avoid disorder, dismissing an effort by a leftwing alliance to name a prime minister.

His announcement in a TV interview came shortly after the leftist coalition that won the most votes in this month’s parliamentary elections selected the little-known civil servant Lucie Castets as its choice for prime minister.

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Olympic team officials briefed after Australian woman allegedly raped by five men in Paris

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Australian chef de mission Anna Meares says athletes have been advised to take care outside Olympic village after reports of assault

Olympic team officials have been briefed on the alleged sexual assault of an Australian woman in Paris.

French police are investigating the allegation that the tourist was sexually assaulted by five men, according to local media.

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France Unbowed MP sparks outrage by saying Israeli Olympians not welcome

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Thomas Portes accused of ‘putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes’ with remarks at protest against Gaza war

An MP for the radical-left France Unbowed party has sparked outrage after saying Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympics and calling for protests against their presence.

Citing Israel’s war in Gaza, Thomas Portes told a pro-Palestinian gathering in Paris on Saturday: “We are just a few days away from an international event to be held in Paris, the Olympic Games. And I’m here to say that no, the Israeli delegation is not welcome in Paris. Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Olympic Games in Paris. We have to use this deadline and all the levers we have to mobilise.”

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‘It’s a very strange feeling’: can the man who won Olympic gold bring glory to the Paris Games?

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2024 Games organiser Tony Estanguet tells how chats with British sporting legend Sebastian Coe have kept him on an even keel

It has to feel pretty weird. You’re in charge of the biggest event your country’s ever organised. You have worked on it to the exclusion, basically, of everything else in your life, for very nearly a decade. And now – it’s a week away.

“It’s a very strange feeling,” confirms Tony Estanguet, head of the 2024 Olympic Games organising committee. “I come from this small town in south-west France. My sport is a very minor one. It’s been … quite a ride. But here I am. And now, well, here we all are.”

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Paris mayor swims in Seine as river is cleaned up just in time for Olympics

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Anne Hidalgo fulfils pledge after cleanup operation makes water quality safe enough to host events at Games

It has been the dream and promise of Paris mayors for decades and a nightmare for Olympic organisers: could the Seine be cleaned up enough to swim in and hold triathlon and other events?

For the last 100 years and up until a few days ago, the answer seemed to be no.

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France contemplates chaos after the general election with no clear winner and the Olympics just weeks away

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The new national assembly meets this week, but what will happen if the three almost equal political blocs cannot agree on a prime minister?

One week after a snap general election that nobody won, and two weeks before it welcomes the world for the Olympic Games, France is still without a new prime minister or government and in political chaos.

As the French celebrate Bastille Day, the national 14 July holiday, the squabbling and stalemate between the three groupings that took the most seats but failed to secure a parliamentary majority continued with warnings that it could be two months before a solution is found.

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Saudi Arabia to host first ‘Olympics Esports Games’ in 2025

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IOC signs deal with kingdom to host gaming Olympics over 12-year period amid criticism of Saudi human rights record

Saudi Arabia and the International Olympic Committee have announced a 12-year agreement to host the new esports Olympics in the oil-rich kingdom starting next year.

The partnership promises “Olympic Esports Games held regularly”, the International Olympic Committee said in a statement on Friday, beginning with the Esports Olympics in 2025. Saudi Arabia did not disclose how much it planned to spend on the competition.

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Paris mayor says rise of far right will not dampen Olympics mood

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Anne Hidalgo says Paris ‘stands up for freedom’ amid Marine Le Pen success in first round of voting

The Paris mayor has sought to reassure visitors that the festive mood at the Olympics will not be dampened by Marine Le Pen’s electoral successes in France’s snap parliamentary elections, with less than a month to go before the city hosts the Games.

“The party will not be spoilt,” Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo told broadcaster France 2 on Tuesday. “I say to visitors from the world over – come over! Because Paris is a city that stands up for freedom and is a city of resistance against the extreme right.”

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Thousands of homeless people removed from Paris region in pre-Olympics ‘social cleansing’

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Campaigners say operation to bus ‘undesirable’ people out of city and wider Île-de-France region has intensified

Thousands of homeless people have been removed from Paris and the surrounding area as part of a “clean-up” operation ahead of the Olympic Games, campaigners say.

Those moved on include asylum seekers, as well as families and children already in a precarious and vulnerable situation, the collective Le Revers de la Médaille, which represents 90 associations, said in a report released on Monday.

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Teenager arrested in France on suspicion of Olympics attack plot

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Interior ministry says 18-year-old Chechen suspected of planning ‘Islamist-inspired’ attack in Saint-Étienne

French security services have arrested a Chechen teenager suspected of plotting an “Islamist-inspired” attack on a football game during this summer’s Olympics, the interior ministry has said.

The domestic intelligence agency DGSI arrested an 18-year-old of Chechen origin in Saint-Étienne, in south-east France, the ministry said on Friday, calling it the “first foiled attack against the Olympic Games”.

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Olympic Games’ €1.4bn clean-up aims to get Parisians swimming in the Seine

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Organisers expect 75% of identified bacterial pollution will be gone by the time the starting gun fires for the open water events

Beside a sign saying “No swimming”, Pierre Fuzeau defiantly pulled on his swimming cap, slipped into the green water of the Ourcq canal on Paris’s northern edge, and set off with a strong front-crawl.

The 66-year-old company director regularly joins his open-water swimming group for well-organised illegal dips, including in the River Seine, where swimming has been banned since 1923 largely as a result of the health risk from unclean water and bacteria from human waste.

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‘Quitting is the devil’s fruit!’: why anime is firing up sports stars

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Bournemouth striker Dominic Solanke, NFL stars and Olympic athletes are finding inspiration in the characters’ resilience

The Bournemouth striker Dominic Solanke twice thought he had scored the opening goal against Brentford on 11 May. Each time he wheeled away to celebrate, he put on an orange mask with a spiral pattern and one eyehole before posing in front of the cameras.

The goal was ruled out by VAR but the celebration went viral, as journalists wrote about “masked mayhem” and others wondered what this “bizarre” celebration could mean.

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Ukraine athletes warned to ignore Russian provocation at Olympics

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  • Sports minister tells his country’s squad to keep a ‘cold head’
  • ‘We consider Russian athletes to be agents of hybrid influence’

The acting sports minister of Ukraine, Matviy Bidnyi, has told his country’s athletes to keep a “cold head” and pay no attention to any provocation from their Russian counterparts at the Olympic Games this summer.

Speaking to the Guardian at the ministry of youth and sports in Kyiv, Bidnyi predicted that Russia will use its representatives in Paris as part of their propaganda operation and explained recommendations have been drawn up to help the Ukraine team avoid becoming embroiled in controversy.

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Australian MP Dan Repacholi shoots for Olympic Games record

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The first-term federal Labor MP is in Azerbaijan where he hopes to qualify for Paris in the men’s 10-metre air pistol shooting event

From Cessnock to Canberra to the Caspian Sea, the Hunter MP, Dan Repacholi, has flown to Azerbaijan chasing a historic feat. The first-term parliamentarian is gunning to become one of what is believed to be only two federal politicians to qualify for an Olympic Games.

He hopes it is the final stage of qualifying for what would be Repacholi’s sixth Olympic Games, a record currently bettered by only one Australian Olympian in history. In Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku on Friday, he will be seeking qualification in the men’s 10-metre air pistol shooting event for the Paris Games in August.

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Aya Nakamura thanks fans for support over Olympics racism as she wins awards

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French singer dedicates top prizes at Les Flammes ‘to all black women’ after backlash over rumoured Paris show

The French pop star Aya Nakamura, who found herself at the centre of a racist row after rumours she was going to sing at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, has thanked fans for their support after winning three big prizes at France’s Les Flammes awards for rap, R&B and pop.

“I’m very honoured because being a black artist and coming from the banlieue is very difficult,” Nakamura told the audience at the ceremony, which she opened with a medley of her songs. She dedicated her awards – female artist of the year, pop album of the year, and international star of the year – “to all black women”.

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