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≡ THE 5-RING CIRCUS ≡
● Olympic Games 2024: Paris ● How fast will Paris return to “normal” after the removal of the temporary installations for the Olympic and Paralympic Games?
Pretty fast, according to the City of Paris, which announced Wednesday that the removal of Games infrastructure from all sites by the Paris 2024 organizers is slated to be completed by the end of October.
Traffic rights-of-way are being cleared now, one by one, with many to be open again by the end of September. The Paralympic Games closed on 8 September.
● Olympic Winter Games 2026: Milan Cortina ● The Italian news agency ANSA reported that Italy’s top-ranked men’s tennis star Jannik Sinner will be registered as the “first volunteer” for the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Games.
The organizing committee’s volunteer program is to be announced Thursday, but will reportedly comprise 20,000 people.
● Russia ● Famed Russian figure skating coach Tatyana Tarasova said in an interview that she believes Russian skaters will be allowed to compete in international championships in the coming season:
“I think we will already be participating in competitions this year. For example, the European Championship, and then the World Championship.
“I think we will immediately show our level. And we will see how much the judges missed us. And the representatives of other countries.”
If so, the venues will be interesting. The Europeans are scheduled from 27 January to 2 February in Tallinn (EST), a Russian neighbor and hardly friendly. The 2025 Worlds will be held in Boston, Massachusetts from 24-30 March.
The International Skating Union suspended Russian and Belarusian participation in March 2022. No Russian skaters received assignments for the 2024 ISU Grand Prix season.
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Nikolai Gulyaev, the President of the Russian Skating Union, is also hopeful, but not due to any specific indications from the ISU:
“We are preparing not to compete with each other, although this is important. I would still like to return to the international arena. I managed to get to the ISU congress in Las Vegas, where I had a meeting with [ISU President Jae-Youl] Mr. Kim [KOR], but unfortunately, that’s all for now.
“I did not ask questions about when and under what conditions we would return, because I understood that I would not get answers. There is a feeling that we will wait for some warming in attitude towards us. How this will happen is still unclear, but something tells me that it will happen.
“We are waiting for the ISU Council at the end of September. We are in contact with the international federation, showing that we are part of the international family.”
● Football ● At the FIFA Women’s U-20 World Cup in Colombia, the semifinals were on in Cali, with the U.S. meeting North Korea in the first match. The Koreans, two-time champions in this event, had outscored their five opponents by 23-4 coming in and got a goal in the 22nd minute from striker Il Son Choe, who found an open area near the top of the box and rifled a left-footer into the U.S. net past American keeper Teagan Wy into the far right corner.
The Koreans were on the attack more consistently than the U.S., finding avenues for shots, but the half ended 1-0, with the Koreans leading 10-3 on shots.
The second half was more of the same, with the Koreans mostly in charge and getting some difficult chances, but keeping the U.S. at bay. But substitute striker Pietra Tordin got a strong shot off in the 76th that required a sprawling save from Korean keeper Un Gyong Chae. The Americans continued with the pressure, but could not score and the Koreans will play for a third title on Sunday. The winners finished with a 17-7 edge on shots.
Japan and the Netherlands will play in the second semifinal, at 8 p.m. local time. The third-place match will be Saturday and the gold-medal final on Sunday, both in Bogota.
● Swimming ● The long-running lawsuit by the International Swimming League and three individual swimmers from 2018 against FINA – now World Aquatics – has been revived by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a Tuesday decision, a three-judge panel reversed a Northern District of California Court holding from January 2023 of summary judgement for FINA, essentially holding that there was no merit to the cases brought by ISL and the swimmers over FINA objections to a swim meet ISL wanted to hold in Italy in 2018.
The Ninth Circuit opinion said that the summary judgement holding went too far and remanded the case for trial. The standard for summary judgement requires the court to view “the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.” The appeal opinion stated:
“Plaintiffs have created a triable issue as to whether FINA’s General Rule 4 constituted a per se unlawful group boycott by preventing member federations and swimmers from doing business with ISL without risking draconian sanctions.”
The opinion dismissed some plaintiff arguments, but sent the matter back to the District Court, which will now have to give it more time and attention. The International Swimming League has been in hiatus since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as its founder and principal funder, Ukrainian energy billionaire Konstantin Grigorishin, has been constrained by the war against his country.
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