Olympics
Brazil hope for revival with clash against Nigeria’s Super Falcons
For the Brazil women’s team facing Nigeria’s Super Falconets this evening in Bordeaux, the match is one the country hopes to use to reconstruct their long-awaited gold medal in Women’s football. Despite the country’s pedigree in world football, the Olympic gold medal has been elusive.
They are two-time Olympic silver medallist (Athens, 2004, and Beijing, 2008) as well as being runners-up in the 2007 Women’s World Cup and third in the 1999 World Cup.
The match with Nigeria is therefore being taken with all seriousness. Other matches with Japan and Sapin will follow. Two teams qualify for the next round while the third placed may qualify as one of the two bests in that category.
The Brazilian coach, Arthur Elias is optimistic of good outing in the opening match with Nigeria. He has been with the team in the past 12 months. He believes that his team is among the probable seven or eight teams that may get the the podium.
. He reiterated that he will line up against Nigeria, a team with “high expectations”, knowing that he has a group of very high-quality athletes on his hands.
“It will be an Olympics marked by balance, with great teams in a position to advance to the final round. In the case of the Brazilian team, we have worked hard on the idea of taking things step by step, game by game. We have studied our opponents in detail and we are prepared.”
In a team that combines youth with experience, Marta is the most remembered name for obvious reasons. Voted the best player in the world six times, she will be competing in her sixth Olympics. She won silver in 2004 and 2008 and has scored goals in the last five editions of the Games.
The forward was called up because of her excellent season with Orlando Pride and the recent friendlies with the National Team, in which she performed very well, physically and technically.
Since training in Teresópolis, Arthur has been implementing different game plans for each of Brazil’s matches in the first phase. The space between one match and another is short, just three days. He has tested several formations in defense, midfield and attack. He does not like to work with the concept of starters.
The team lineup will only be announced moments before the match and will remain so until Brazil’s last game at the Olympics.
Brazil had two outstanding campaigns in women’s Olympic football. In 2004 and 2008, when they won silver. After that, in 2012, 2016 and 2021, they advanced well from the first phase, but were ineffective in the knockout stages. This is directly related to the fact that the coach called up seven attackers for the Games.
Both in Teresópolis and in Bordeaux, the National Team trained several attacking options, which reinforces the coach’s idea that he is in charge of a group in which all of them are capable of being selected at any time.
Roy Jones Jr has been handed the Olympic gold medal he was controversially denied in 1988 in an extraordinary act of sportsmanship by the South Korean fighter who beat him.
Hall of Fame boxer Jones shared a video on Wednesday from two years ago that showed Park Si-hun visiting the American’s ranch in Pensacola, Florida to present him with the light middleweight gold medal.
“I had the gold medal, but I want to give it back to you. It belongs to you,” Park said in the video through his son, who translated.
Jones, who was overcome with emotion by the gesture, covered his face with his hand before saying: “Wow, that is crazy.”
Their match at the Seoul Olympics remains one of boxing’s most contentious moments as Jones appeared to dominate the fight but lost to Park by a 3-2 decision that drew instant criticism and sparked enduring controversy.
Despite losing the gold medal match, Jones was selected as the Val Barker Trophy winner as the best boxer of the 1988 Olympics.
Jones went on to become a four-division world champion and is regarded as one of the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighters of all time.
“In 1988, I was robbed of the gold medal in what became one of the biggest controversies in boxing history,” Jones wrote in his Instagram post.
“By the grace of God, a couple of years ago, the man who won that medal made the trip from South Korea to my home to return it to me, feeling it was rightfully mine.
“I hope you enjoy this moment as much as I did.”
-Reuters
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U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday creating a White House Olympics task force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, an administration official told Reuters.
The task force, made up of members from Trump’s cabinet and government agencies, will coordinate federal, state and local government work on transportation, the official said.
It also will “streamline visa processing and credentialing for foreign athletes, coaches, officials, and media,” the official said in an email.
The United States will host the Olympics in Los Angeles in three years. Trump, a Republican who lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, has expressed pleasure that his second term will coincide with the Olympics and the World Cup.
“During his first term, President Trump was instrumental in securing America’s bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The president considers it a great honor to oversee this global sporting spectacle in his second term,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Monday.
Last month organizers of the Los Angeles games released the first look at the Olympic competition schedule . The city had also hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984.
“The creation of this task force marks an important step forward in our planning efforts and reflects our shared commitment to delivering not just the biggest, but the greatest Games the world has ever seen in the summer of 2028,” Casey Wasserman, the chair and president of LA28, said in a statement.
–Reuters
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By DAVID LEE
Home is many places for swimmer Adaku Nwandu, who was born in China, lives in Singapore and wears the Nigeria flag on her swimsuit.
And it is at her current home in Singapore that the 17-year-old is making her debut at the World Aquatics Championships (WCH).
In the second heat of the 100m freestyle at the WCH Arena, the teenager, who has a Nigerian father and Chinese mother, led at the turn before finishing third in 1min 0.89sec – she eventually placed 59th out of 82 athletes overall.
After her race, Adaku shared with The Straits Times that she was born and raised in Shanghai, and started swimming when she was eight. Interestingly, it was ice cream that kept her in the sport.
Adaku, who still has the 50m freestyle heats on Aug 2, said: “At a school competition, I didn’t do so well and I asked my dad if we could make a deal. He said if I do better, he would buy me ice cream once every week, and that’s a promise we have kept with each other. And that’s what brought me here.”
In 2023, the family moved to Singapore due to her mother’s work posting. With her fluent Mandarin and love for Asian and spicy food, it did not take long for her to pick up Singlish and enjoy local delights like chicken rice and chilli crab.
She said: “We came here mainly because of my mother’s work, and also because the swimming scene back where I lived in China was a little bit toxic, so she also thought Singapore would be a new experience and better for my swimming.”
By then, she had already committed to representing Nigeria after its aquatics association contacted her after the National Sports Festival in Asaba, where the then 16-year-old was part of the national record-breaking women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team.
But Singapore is where she has been honing her swimming skills, as she has set her 50m and 100m freestyle long- and short-course Nigeria national records at meets here.
Noting her improvements, Singapore swimming coach and performance director Gary Tan said: “Adaku has been participating in our system for a while, and we hope it helps her develop as a swimmer and achieve what she wants while training in Singapore with her school (German European School Singapore).”
For someone who is inspired by Olympic champions David Popovici, Caeleb Dressel and Adam Peaty for “their dedication and the way they are able to take breaks for themselves to improve and get back to the water”, qualifying for Paris 2024 on ranking points was a dream come true.
Her Olympic debut was also unforgettable as her swimsuit ripped 20 minutes before her 50m freestyle heat, but she managed to finish second in her heat and 33rd out of 78th overall in 26.62 seconds, just 0.03 of a second off her personal best.
Back in Singapore, Adaku, who is in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme at her school, realised that she needed more of such resilience to reach her goals.
The swimmer, who also plays for the school’s volleyball team, said: “I had a lot of improvement the first year I came to Singapore. But this past year has been especially hard for me with family problems and also school. The workload in my first year of IB made it hard to balance training and school.
“Especially in the next year, I want to focus more on swimming and try to get some new personal bests because this year I just plateaued. I’m looking forward to training harder and preparing for my next competition and hopefully qualify for the next Olympics.”
-Strait Times, Singapore
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