(ATR)Larry Bohannan, a golf writer for the Southern California publication The Desert Sun, explains how the Olympic system is leaving top golfers out.
Golf returns to the Olympic Program this year in Rio for the first time in 112 years. The men's and women's tournaments will take place from Aug. 11-20.
"As of this moment, Brittany Lincicome, the reigning champion of the ANA Inspiration LPGA major championship, is not in the Olympics field for the United States," Bohannan writes.
"How is that possible? Because the rules for getting into the 60-player Olympics field are pretty straight forward, and Lincicome is the player on the outside looking at that the moment for the United States."
Contributing to the Nikkei Asian Review, one of the world's largest financial publications, writer Hamish McDonald explores whetherwe will see one of the world's great sporting mysteries being repeated in Rio de Janeiro.
"Form suggests that India, with 1.3 billion people and set to overtake China as the world's most populous nation six years from now, will once again win a pathetically small number of medals."
New York Times columnist John Branch spotlights Brazilian judo champion Rafaela Silva in the lead up to the 2016 Rio Olympics.
"Brazil has never won more than five gold medals at a single Olympics, but no sport -- not sailing, not beach volleyball, not swimming or track and field -- has produced more Brazilian medalists than judo.
"Silva, 23, is expected to add another."
Jonathan Watts and Ana Terra Athayde, columnists for The Guardian stationed in Rio, feature two African refugees hoping to make history at the 2016 Games.
"When Popole Misenga and Yolande Mabika fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo three years ago and sought asylum in Brazil, they hoped to escape history.
"This summer, they may end up making it instead as refugee athletes competing in the Olympic Games for a flag rather than a nation."
Writing for Wired, a monthly tech-focused magazine, Liz Stinson explores how Brazil designed its shapeshifting Olympic torch.
"It is almost entirely white, save for a logo. With a satin aluminum finish, it looks almost clinical in its simplicity," Stinson says.
"Then you open it. At the moment of the kiss -- the handoff from one torch bearer to another -- the runner will turn a knob to ignite the gas valve, which will simultaneously cause the top of the white cone to expand, revealing five ribbons of bright, metallic colors."
In other news
Contributing to U.S.-based magazine Outside, writer Brian Alexander explains why he thinks the U.S. should never host another Olympics.
"It's expensive, demanding, and in the eyes of the many cities that have refused to throw their hats into the five-ring circus, a total scam," Alexander says.
He adds, "After enough pleading and promises to make a desperate boyfriend seem hard to get, the IOC thought it had the final list of candidates that would compete to host the 2024 Summer Olympics: Paris, Rome, Hamburg, Budapest, and -- a last-minute substitute for Boston -- Los Angeles.
"But then, late last year, Hamburg said no thanks, leaving four organizing committees in four cities who say they really, really want the Games. So now we wait. And wait."
Madeline Buxton, a writer for the fitness daily Shape magazine, poses a question to sports fans: "Why Do We Ignore Some Sports Where Female Athletes Dominate Until the Olympics?"
She adds, "If you think about the female athletes who have dominated the news cycle in the past year -- Rounda Rousey, the members of the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, Serena Williams -- you can't deny that there's no more exciting time to be a woman in sports.
"But as we head into 2016, the year of the Rio Olympics, it's hard not to wonder why certain female athletes are just now becoming known to the world."
Compiled byNicole Bennett
For general comments or questions,click here.
20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics isAroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.
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.
