Category Archives: Winter Olympics

Tokyo Olympics bribery scandal threatens to derail Winter Games bid

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Japanese official says corruption claims could damage Sapporo’s chances of hosting 2030 event

More than a year after the Tokyo Olympics were held in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, their legacy has been overshadowed by a bribery scandal that threatens to derail a bid by another Japanese city to host the Winter Games.

This summer, as officials in Sapporo, on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido, promoted their bid for the 2030 Games, police arrested Haruyuki Takahashi, a former Tokyo Olympics executive, on suspicion of taking bribes in return for helping companies become official sponsors for last year’s event.

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The Kamila Valieva case shows yet again that the IOC is betraying teen athletes

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This rotten organisation stood by while the 15-year-old skater and her Olympic dreams were publicly crushed

A fish rots from the head. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is the head of the Olympic movement, and it is rotten to the core. Long ago, this vile organisation abandoned its stated principles of “excellence, friendship and respect” to embrace greed, corruption and abuse.

For many, the enduring image of Bejing 2022 will not be one of Olympic glory, but the tragic and bizarre spectacle attending the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva. Once again, the Russians got caught cheating: Valieva tested positive for a banned medication. Still the IOC allowed her to compete, and then stood by while this child and her Olympic dreams were publicly crushed. After her performance collapsed, her despicable coach humiliated her, badgering her about on-ice failures as Valieva left the rink.

Sarah Klein is a civil attorney and advocate for survivors of sexual abuse

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How citizenship row clouded Eileen Gu’s Olympics

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Success of Chinese American skier should have been a positive story but geopolitics got in the way

Until recently, the US-born freestyle skier Eileen Gu – or Gu Ailing as she is known in China – was one of the rising numbers of Chinese Americans straddling the two countries. They are comfortable operating between the two cultures and systems, taking pride in their heritage as well as their upbringing.

Gu, now 18, was born in San Francisco to an American father and a Chinese mother. She’s a big fan of Chinese dumplings and, every summer, she flew back to Beijing to attend cram school for mathematics. “When I’m in China, I’m Chinese and when I go to America, I’m American,” she once said.

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Beijing 2022 organisers claim stories of Xinjiang human rights abuses are ‘lies’

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  • Winter Olympics plunged into further controversy
  • Spokesperson Yan Jiarong also insists Taiwan is part of China

The Winter Olympics have been plunged into further controversy after Beijing 2022 spokesperson Yan Jiarong dismissed human rights violations among the Uyghur Muslim population as “lies” and insisted Taiwan was part of China.

Yan, a former member of the Chinese delegation to the UN general assembly, referred to “so-called forced labour” in Xinjiang in response to one question, before saying China was against the “politicising of sports”.

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Valieva team claim positive test may be due to grandfather’s heart medication

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  • Legal team claim contaminated glass of water could be to blame
  • Russian skater ‘emotionally fatigued’ ahead of individual event

Kamila Valieva’s legal team has claimed that her positive drugs test may have come from a contaminated glass of water that contained traces of her grandfather’s heart medication.

Speaking after the daily media briefing in Beijing, International Olympic Committee member Denis Oswald confirmed the 15-year-old Russian’s explanation for her positive test for the banned angina drug trimetazidine was “contamination which happened with a product her grandfather was taking”.

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Kamila Valieva: Cas clearance for skater sparks anger at Winter Olympics

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  • Cas clears 15-year-old to compete in individual event
  • Russian had tested positive for a banned angina drug

The Beijing Winter Games descended into acrimony and farce on Monday after the 15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva was cleared to compete again despite a positive doping test hanging over her head.

In a highly anticipated ruling, the court of arbitration for sport said there were “exceptional circumstances” surrounding Valieva’s case, and that banning her while it was ongoing “would cause her irreparable harm”.

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Winter Olympics day nine: short track speed skating, biathlon and more – live!

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Ice hockey: Slovakia up 3-1 now over Latvia, with three goalscorers.

And of course, make sure to check out our picture gallery from day eight. Some great shots as usual.

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Hanbok at Beijing Winter Olympics opening sparks South Korean anger

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Appearance of traditional dress denounced as further attempt by China to appropriate Korean culture

China and South Korea have become embroiled in a cultural appropriation row after a woman appeared at the opening ceremony of the Beijing winter Olympics wearing traditional Korean dress.

The Chinese embassy in Seoul defended the decision to include a participant wearing hanbok, describing her as a representative of the country’s dozens of ethnic groups.

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Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 day three: curling semi-finals, speed skating and more – live!

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Here’s a line from the US figure skating team. For context, Zhou is the only skater to have beaten the juggernaut that is Nathan Chen in the last four years.

“As part of yesterday’s regular COVID-19 screening, Vincent Zhou tested positive. Under the guidance of the USOPC medical staff, Zhou is undergoing additional testing to confirm his status. If the results are negative, Zhou will be able to compete in the men’s short program, which begins Tuesday. At this time, we ask you respect his privacy as we await the results.”

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‘I have no more tears’: Beijing’s Winter Olympics hit by athlete complaints

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  • Swedish team suggest schedule needs altering due to cold
  • Isolation issues continue; Germany bemoan lack of hot food

On the eve of the Winter Olympics, China promised the world a “streamlined, safe and most splendid” Games. But just two days into the event organisers are facing a litany of complaints from athletes and countries on multiple fronts.

The Swedes have suggested that the conditions in the mountains are perilously cold. A Polish skater says she was living in fear in a Beijing isolation ward and has “cried until I have no more tears”. The Finns have claimed an ice hockey player is being kept in Covid quarantine for no reason. And the Germans? They are frustrated that there is no hot food at the downhill skiing.

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Winter Olympics day one: curling, ice hockey, freestyle skiing and more – live!

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Aussie Jakara Anthony Goes Top

The Victorian unleashes a scintillating run to go top in qualifying for the Women’s Moguls. She even pipped the peerless Frenchwoman Perrine Laffont, a former gold medallist. Commentary, rather curiously, is being provided by former cricketer Dirk Nannes.

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Trial of protesters against Beijing Olympics postponed in Greece

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Lawyers say delay in case against three defendants including a Briton is to avoid embarrassing China

The trial in Greece of activists who protested against Beijing holding the Winter Olympics has been postponed amid accusations that proceedings were delayed to avoid embarrassing China on the eve of the Games.

The highly anticipated hearing had been due to take place on Thursday in the town of Pyrgos, with human rights lawyers travelling from the UK and Athens to attend. The activists, who included a Briton, an American and a Tibetan-Canadian, were arrested when they briefly disrupted the Olympic flame lighting ceremony in October.

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Xi and Putin urge Nato to rule out expansion as Ukraine tensions rise

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Chinese and Russian leaders call on west to abandon ‘cold war’ approach at pre-Olympic meeting

China’s Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin of Russia have signed a joint statement calling on the west to “abandon the ideologised approaches of the cold war”, as the two leaders showcased their warming relationship in Beijing at the start of the Winter Olympics.

The politicans also said the bonds between the two countries had “no limits”. “[T]here are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation’,” they declared.

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Winter Olympics 2022: 10 things to look out for in Beijing

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Jamaica return to the bobsleigh after 24 years, Haiti and Saudi Arabia make debuts, while GB aim for curling glory

Jamaica will enter a four-man bobsleigh team in the Olympics for the first time in 24 years after nicking the final qualifying spot, offering a feelgood reboot for the island nation whose debut at the 1988 Calgary Games inspired the Disney film Cool Runnings. Just making it to Beijing might seem like accomplishment enough for Shanwayne Stephens, the team’s 31-year-old pilot and Royal Air Force lance corporal who emigrated to Great Britain with his family in 2002: certainly after improvised training methods at the height of the pandemic that included pushing his girlfriend’s Mini Cooper around the streets of Peterborough. But having touched down in China after undergoing their final preparations at the University of Bath, his goal is plain. “It’s got to be medalling,” Stephens says. “It’s everybody’s dream, it’s what we’re here to do. So why not aim high?” BAG

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‘Nobody can say anything’: China cracks down on dissent ahead of Olympics

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Communist party tightens grip on critics to preserve ‘perfect’ image of Winter Games

A chill is blowing through Chinese civil society as activists, journalists and academics report receiving police warnings and censorship of their social media platforms in recent weeks as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics beginning on Friday.

In mid-January, the Beijing-based human rights activist Hu Jia said in a tweet that China’s state security apparatus was summoning activists around the country to question them and warn them to stay silent.

The author Zhang Yihe and prominent journalist Gao Yu said they had lost some or all of their access to WeChat, China’s dominant social media platform. Academics including Guo Yuhua, the outspoken Tsinghua University sociologist, and He Weifang, the Peking University law professor, reported similar issues.

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Olympic skeleton racer freed from Beijing isolation facility after tearful video plea for help

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  • Kim Meylemans wrongly taken to a second Covid facility
  • IOC steps in and Belgian now feels ‘safe’ in Olympic village

The Belgian skeleton racer Kim Meylemans has been freed from an isolation facility in Beijing following a plea for help in a tearful video posted on Instagram.

Meylemans confirmed that she now felt “safe” at the Olympic village after the Belgian Olympic Committee and the IOC stepped in when they learned she had wrongly been taken by ambulance to a second government facility and was told she would have to isolate for 14 more days due to Covid-19 concerns.

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Organisers downplay fears as 11 at Winter Olympics in hospital with Covid

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  • ‘None of those hospitalised are seriously ill in any way’
  • Team GB’s 109 athletes, coaches and team officials virus free

Eleven people at the Winter Olympics are in hospital with Covid, Beijing 2022 officials have revealed, although none are in a life-threatening condition.

Organisers have also downplayed concerns that the virus is spreading within the ‘closed-looped’ system in Beijing, which completely separates Olympic personnel from the general public, despite a further nine athletes and 23 team officials testing positive in the last 24 hours.

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Spectre of 1936 and 1980 haunts Beijing 2022 as fear and repression breed silence

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China has been repressing minorities and targeting dissenters but anyone who chooses to speak out faces the threat of reprisal from a hostile regime

Zumretay Arkin is remembering the day she thought she might change the International Olympic Committee’s mind. It was October 2020, and human rights groups, representing Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans, and the democracy movement in Hong Kong, were granted a meeting with senior IOC figures to discuss their concerns about the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

“I explained how millions of Uyghurs are being arbitrarily detained in concentration camps,” she says. “The IOC was told survivors’ stories of rapes and torture, forced sterilisation and repression. And about families who have not heard from relatives for years.

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Covid live news: China detects 37 cases among Olympics personnel; Russia records 621 deaths in the past 24 hours

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New Covid cases were up from 34 a day earlier according to Beijing organising committee; Russia has registered 621 new Covid deaths

The New Zealand government has defended its strict quarantine system known as MIQ after a pregnant New Zealand journalist said she had to turn to the Taliban for help after her requests to get back to her own country were rejected.

Charlotte Bellis discovered she was pregnant a short time after gaining international attention in 2021 for questioning Taliban leaders about their treatment of women and girls. She is due to give birth in May.

I understand she wanted to return on a specific date and that officials reached out to her for more information shortly after looking at her application. The emergency allocation criteria includes a requirement to travel to New Zealand within the next 14 days. Ms Bellis indicated she did not intend to travel until the end of February and has been encouraged by MIQ to consider moving her plans forward.”

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Beijing seals off several communities over two cases of Covid-19

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As the Winter Olympics nears, the Chinese capital has locked down some neighbourhoods and is setting up 19 testing points

Beijing officials have sealed off several residential communities north of the city centre after two cases of Covid-19 were found as the Chinese capital prepares to host the Winter Olympics opening ceremony on Friday.

Another 34 cases were confirmed among athletes and others who have come for the Games, the organising committee said. In all, 211 people have tested positive among more than 8,000 who had arrived by the end of Saturday. They include a Swedish cross-country skier and a snowboarder from Slovenia.

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