Olympics Archives

Rafael Nadal to skip Wimbledon to focus on Olympics

Rafael Nadal confirmed on Thursday he will miss Wimbledon to focus on the Paris Olympics, which will be played on the clay courts at Roland Garros.

The announcement came a day after Spanish tennis chiefs said 14-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal would team up with Carlos Alcaraz at the Olympics in the French capital, which start late next month.

Nadal, 38, lost in the first round at Roland Garros last month and indicated he was likely to skip Wimbledon, played on grass courts, where he was champion in 2008 and 2010.

The injury-plagued Spaniard, who has slumped to 264 in the world rankings, said after his exit to eventual runner-up Alexander Zverev in Paris that switching surfaces would not be “smart”.

“It looks difficult to make a transition to grass, having the Olympics again on clay,” he said at the time.

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The former world number one, who won the Olympics singles title in Beijing in 2008, only returned to competition in April after missing most of the past 16 months through injury.

On Thursday, Rafael Nadal confirmed on social media that he would not be travelling to London to take part in the third Grand Slam of the year.

“During my post-match press conference at Roland Garros I was asked about my summer calendar and since then I have been practising on clay,” he tweeted.

“It was announced yesterday that I will play at the summer Olympics in Paris, my last Olympics.”

He added: “With this goal, we believe that the best for my body is not to change surface and keep playing on clay until then.

“It’s for this reason that I will miss playing at the Championships this year at Wimbledon. I am saddened not to be able to live this year the great atmosphere of that amazing event that will always be in my heart, and be with all the British fans that always gave me great support. I will miss you all.”

Rafael Nadal, who teamed up with Marc Lopez to win the Olympic doubles title at the 2016 Rio Games, will warm up for Paris at the Bastad clay court tournament in Sweden, which starts on July 15.

The veteran, second on the all-time list of men’s Grand Slam winners behind Novak Djokovic, will form a doubles team at the Olympics with newly crowned French Open champion and reigning Wimbledon champion Alcaraz.

Both will also compete in singles at the tennis tournament in Paris, which starts on July 27.

Nadal, who has a 7-5 win-loss record this year, said before the start of the recent French Open that there was a chance he might not be back at Roland Garros but insisted he was still keeping the door “100 percent open” on continuing his career.

His withdrawal from Wimbledon, which starts on July 1, is a big blow for organisers, with Djokovic a major doubt after undergoing a knee operation.

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Paris 2024 Olympic Games flame lit in ancient Olympia

The sacred flame for the Paris 2024 Olympics was lit Tuesday in Olympia, Greece, the birthplace of the ancient Games, in a ceremony inspired by antiquity and marked by messages of hope amid multiple global crises.

“In ancient times, the Olympic Games brought together the Greek city states, even – and in particular – during times of war and conflict,” said International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.

“Today, the Olympic Games are the only event that brings the entire world together in peaceful competition. Then as now, the Olympic athletes are sending this powerful message: yes, it is possible to compete fiercely against each other and at the same time live peacefully together under one roof,” he said.

Owing to cloudy weather, Greek actresses in the role of ancient priestesses used a flame lit in a rehearsal Monday in the 2,600-year-old Temple of Hera, near the stadium where the Olympics were born in 776 BC.

Carrying the flame in a pot, Greek actress Mary Mina lit the torch for the first bearer, 2020 Olympic rowing champion Stefanos Ntouskos.

🔥 The Olympic flame for #Paris2024 is lit!#Paris2024 | @Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/1odw4ga9G0

— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) April 16, 2024

Retired French swimmer Laure Manaudou, who won her first gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, followed as France’s first torchbearer in Olympia.

Officials on Tuesday stressed that the Paris Games will set new milestones, following the legacy of the other two prior Olympics held in the French capital.

“The Olympic Flame will shine over the first Olympic Games inspired by our Olympic Agenda reforms from start to finish,” Bach said.

“These Olympic Games will be younger, more inclusive, more urban, more sustainable. These will be the very first Olympic Games with full gender parity because the IOC allocated exactly 50 percent of the places to female and male athletes,” he said.

Paris Olympics chief organiser Tony Estanguet noted that women took part for the first time in the Paris 1900 Games, while the first Olympic Village was created for the Paris 2024 Games.

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic imposed toned-down events for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2022 Beijing Winter Games, the ceremony was back with full regalia and scores of spectators.

Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo were present at the ceremony.

The torch harks back to the ancient Olympics when a sacred flame burned throughout the Games. The tradition was revived in 1936 for the Berlin Games.

During the 11-day relay on Greek soil, some 600 torchbearers will carry the flame over a distance of 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) through 41 municipalities.

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The Olympic flame will be handed over to Paris 2024 organisers in a ceremony at the all-marble Panathenaic Stadium, the site of the first modern Olympic Games of 1896, on April 26.

Nana Mouskouri, the 89-year-old Greek singer with a worldwide following, has been invited to perform at the ceremony.

On April 27, the flame will begin its journey to France on board the 19th-century three-masted barque Belem, which was launched just weeks after the Athens 1896 Games.

A French historical monument, the Belem carried out trade journeys to Brazil, Guyana and the Caribbean for nearly two decades.

France’s last surviving three-mast steel-hulled boat is expected to arrive in Marseille on May 8. Ten thousand torchbearers will then carry the flame across 64 French territories.

It will travel through 400 towns and dozens of tourist attractions during its 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) journey through mainland France and overseas French territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific.

On July 26 it will form the centrepiece of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

The ceremony is planned to be held on the river Seine — the first time it has not been held in the Games’ main stadium.

However, French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said it could be moved to the national stadium in the event of a security threat.

Macron said instead of teams sailing down the Seine on barges, the ceremony could be “limited to the Trocadero” building across the river from the Eiffel Tower or “even moved to the Stade de France”.

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IOC confirms cricket as one of five new sports at 2028 Los Angeles Olympics

Cricket will feature as one of five new sports at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, organisers announced Monday.

A vote of the International Olympic Committee’s session in Mumbai approved cricket, together with baseball/softball, flag football, squash and lacrosse.

The IOC’s executive board last week accepted a proposal by organisers for Twenty20 cricket, the sport’s shortest format, to be included along with the four other new events at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

But the final choice still had to be voted on Monday at the IOC session in Mumbai, one of the global centres for cricket, as India hosts the men’s 50-over Cricket World Cup.

Los Angeles chiefs have proposed a six-team cricket event in Olympics, in both men’s and women’s T20 cricket.

The United States is set to field sides as the host nation, but no firm decision has been made on the number of teams, or how they will qualify.

Cricket last featured at the 1900 Paris Olympics, when a team from Britain beat a side representing France.

Adding cricket to the Olympic programme is an obvious move, financially speaking.

It would tap into the lucrative South Asian market, attracting fans in countries such as India and Pakistan.

The Indian Premier League, featuring cricket’s global stars, has helped India become the unquestioned economic driving force of the sport, thanks to legions of fans and lucrative broadcasting deals in a nation where the game is almost a religion.

Meanwhile, Major League Cricket, a professional Twenty20 League, launched in the United States in July.

“It’s a win-win situation,” International Cricket Council chairman Greg Barclay told reporters in Mumbai of cricket’s inclusion in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“It’s a massive day for cricket,” the New Zealander added.

“We’ve got global sport, what I think is the fastest-growing global sport, but getting onto the biggest sporting stage in the world, the Olympics, is a massive shot in the arm for the game.”

But the IOC said Monday the status of boxing at the 2028 Games remains “on hold” after it stripped the International Boxing Association (IBA) of its recognition following a dispute over how the sport is governed.

Boxing has been part of every Olympics since 1920 and will feature at next year’s Paris Games.

But in June, the IBA was effectively expelled from the Olympic movement following a bitter dispute between Games chiefs and its Russian president, Umar Kremlev.

That move came following concerns over the credibility of IBA-sanctioned tournaments, as well as the boxing governing body’s finances and governance.

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Cricket set for Olympics return at Los Angeles 2028

Cricket’s long Olympics exile could finally come to an end this week when Games chiefs meet in Mumbai to finalise the programme for Los Angeles 2028.

Twenty-eight sports are already confirmed on the schedule but cricket was one of five new sports formally proposed for inclusion by organisers for the Los Angeles Olympics on Monday.

The International Cricket Council’s proposal is for men’s and women’s Twenty20 competitions — the shortest form of the international game.

“We are delighted that LA28 have recommended cricket for inclusion in the Olympics,” ICC chairman Greg Barclay said.

“Whilst this is not the final decision, it is a very significant landmark towards seeing cricket at the Olympics for the first time in more than a century.”

If it makes the cut, it would be the first time cricket has featured since 1900, when a team from Britain beat a side representing France in Paris.

Since then it has been in the Olympic wilderness, in part because cricket itself was quite happy to stand aside from the Games.

But in recent years the ICC has made clear it wants to be part of the global showpiece — a move that could turbo-charge the sport and help it exploit new markets.

“Our sport is united behind this bid, and we see the Olympics as a part of cricket’s long-term future,” Barclay said in 2021.

“We have more than a billion fans globally and almost 90 percent of them want to see cricket at the Olympics.”

The game has had support from the highest places in the Olympic movement.

Late ICC president Jacques Rogge said in 2011: “We would welcome an application. It (cricket) is an important, popular sport and very powerful on television.”

The current president, Thomas Bach, has also backed the inclusion of cricket, which featured at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

This week the IOC executive board is meeting in Mumbai, ahead of a full IOC session from October 15 to October 17, which would effectively rubberstamp the decision.

Cricket could not have asked for a better city in which to make its case.

The IOC session is being held in one of the hotbeds of the sport as India hosts the men’s 50-over World Cup.

Cricket, with its multiple formats and quirky rules, has long been a source of curiosity in areas of the world where it is not played.

But the global language of cold, hard cash is easier to understand.

The arguments that Olympic cricket would clash with the English season or that the game takes too long look increasingly outdated.

The global calendar is now a mishmash of international cricket, domestic cricket and franchise cricket, with multiple formats jostling for attention.

The wildly popular T20 Indian Premier League, which has spawned several other franchise competitions worldwide, means traditional five-day Test cricket, long regarded as the pinnacle of the game, no longer holds sway.

The IPL, featuring global superstars, has helped India become the unquestioned economic driving force of cricket, thanks to legions of fans and lucrative broadcasting deals in a nation where the game is almost a religion.

Adding cricket to the Olympic programme is an obvious move, financially speaking.

It would tap into the lucrative South Asian market, attracting fans in countries such as India and Pakistan that have not traditionally been strong in the core Olympic sports.

It would also potentially help cricket access millions of dollars of public and corporate funding currently reserved for Games sports.

That would benefit emerging cricket nations but could also help cash-strapped established countries such as South Africa.

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