#ICYMI -- In Case You Missed It ... Sometimes the best stories don't get the attention we think they deserve. Here are our staff picks for articles this week they really want you to know about..
IPC President: "Most Important Paralympics in History"
(ATR) International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons believes that the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics will be the most impactful in the movement’s four-decade history.
"Precisely because of the pandemic, these Paralympic Games are the most important in the history of the movement because the pandemic has affected, disproportionally, persons with disability around the globe," Parsons tellsAround the Rings.
"In this sense, it has highlighted inequalities in the ways societies serve people and treat people with disability in terms of access to services, infrastructures, and in the design of policies that should be inclusive, but in a moment of stress they end up not being as inclusive as planned.
"The Paralympic Games is the only global event where persons with disability take center stage – and we’re not talking just only about sport," he said. "It is their platform that they have to be heard at the moment."
Click here to read the rest of the story.
Cortina Bobsleigh Project on Track Amid Twists and Turns
(ATR) Eugenio Monti is widely considered the greatest bobsleigh pilot ever and a sportsman who epitomized the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect.
The Italian won six Olympic medals between 1956 and 1968, but is perhaps equally remembered for his magnanimous gestures at the 1964 Innsbruck Games.
Among the favorites in two events, Monti lent the British duo of Anthony Nash and Robin Dixon a bolt off his own sled prior to the final run of the two-man competition. He then assisted Canada by offering his mechanic to make a critical sled repair during the four-man event. Monti’s competitors proceeded to race to gold medals as he and his teammates settled for a pair of bronze medals.
Monti was honored and awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal for his sportsmanship.
Nearly six decades after his unforgettable acts and with preparations for Milano-Cortina 2026 ramping up, Italian sport leaders and politicians intend to honor Monti by having the fabled Cortina d’Ampezzo bobsleigh track rebuilt. The 1956 Olympic venue was renamed after the Italian legend following his death in 2003, but closed in 2008 due to rising maintenance costs.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
Tokyo 2020 Baseball Qualifier Moves to Mexico
(ATR) The Final Baseball Qualifier for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games moves from Chinese Taipei to Mexico due to the unexpected epidemiological situation in the Asian nation.
The president of the WBSC, the Italian Riccardo Fraccari, confirmed the announcement to Around the Rings on Thursdayand revealed that for five days he had been in the process of finding a new headquarters while restrictions were tightened in Taiwan due to the increase in COVID cases.
The most recent of the regulations prohibited the entry to the island of travelers without resident visas until June 18, which hampered the development of the event that was to be held at the Taichung Intercontinental Stadium from June 16.
The decision to change the venue was confirmed after a virtual emergency meeting with the WBSC Executive Committee and after consultations with the Mexican authorities led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a lover of baseball.
Click here for the rest of the story.
Recent Articles
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
