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United Airlines has teamed up with Special Olympics to make sure your holiday travel is a little easier at DIA - Denver 7 Colorado News

The Olympics or Olympic Games are international sporting events which are meant to foster cooperation and friendship between the nations of the world while also celebrating athleticism. There are two main components to the Olympics: the Summer Games and the Winter Games. Both games last several weeks, combining scores of events, and they are held every four years. As of 1992, they are staggered so that an Olympic Games takes place every two years. By convention, the host of the Olympics changes with each Olympic Games, theoretically allowing every nation to have a chance to host the event, although the balance of hosts has been heavily skewed to the Northern Hemisphere historically.

The Olympic Games have ancient origins. In Ancient Greece, a pan-Hellenic games was held at Olympia every four years, allowing athletes to demonstrate their skills, along with poets, artists, and playwrights. The ancient Olympics also had a strong religious aspect, with attendees holding sacrifices and religious services throughout the games. In 393 BCE, the Roman Empire outlawed the Olympic Games, and it was not seen again in recognizable form for over 2000 years.

As early as the 1700s, several sporting associations held regional Olympiads, and in the mid-1800s, Greece hosted an Olympiad which featured competitors from Greece and the Ottoman Empire. In 1896, the Olympic Games experienced an official revival, thanks to the efforts of Pierre Fredy, Baron of Coubertin, who established many of the conventions and infrastructure which live on in the modern Olympics, including the motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius, which means "Swifter, Higher, Stronger." Baron Coubertin also created the Olympic logo, a stylized design of five rings.

The Olympic Games are meant to symbolize peace, although three games (1916, 1940, and 1944) have been canceled due to war. They are also supposed to be apolitical, although this goal has not always been achieved; several Cold War nations boycotted each other during the Olympics, for example, and some nations have staged strategic Olympic boycotts to protest various activities by other competing nations.

The organizations which collectively work together to organize the Olympics are known as the Olympic Movement, and they include the International Olympic Committee, the International Federations which determine standards for various sports, and the National Olympic Committees of competing nations. Athletes who compete in the Olympics are widely considered to be among the best in the world; just being able to compete is a great honor, and taking a medal is a credit both to the individual athlete and the nation which he or she represents.

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What are the Olympics? (with pictures) - Sports & Nobbies

Major international multi-sport event

The Summer Olympic Games (French: Jeux olympiques d't), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, Greece, and the most recent edition was held in 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for organising the Games and for overseeing the host city's preparations. The tradition of awarding medals began in 1904; in each Olympic event, gold medals are awarded for first place, silver medals for second place, and bronze medals for third place. The Winter Olympic Games were created out of the success of the Summer Olympic Games, which are regarded as the largest and most prestigious multi-sport international event in the world.

The Summer Olympics have increased in scope from a 42-event competition programme in 1896 with fewer than 250 male competitors from 14 different nations, to 339 events in 2021 with 11,420 competitors (almost half of whom were women) from 206 nations. The Games have been held in nineteen different countries over five continents: four times in the United States (1904, 1932, 1984, and 1996); three times in Great Britain (1908, 1948, and 2012); twice each in Greece (1896 and 2004), France (1900 and 1924), Germany (1936 and 1972), Australia (1956 and 2000), and Japan (1964 and 2020); and once each in Sweden (1912), Belgium (1920), the Netherlands (1928), Finland (1952), Italy (1960), Mexico (1968), Canada (1976), the Soviet Union (1980), South Korea (1988), Spain (1992), China (2008), and Brazil (2016).

London was the first city to host the Summer Olympic Games three times. As of 2022[update], Paris, Los Angeles, Athens and Tokyo have each hosted twice; Paris will host for the third time in 2024, followed by Los Angeles which will host the Games in 2028.[1] Only five countries have participated in every Summer Olympic Games: Australia, France, Great Britain, Greece, and Switzerland. Great Britain is the only country to have won a gold medal at every edition of the Games. The United States leads the all-time medal count at the Summer Olympics, and has topped the medal table on 18 separate occasionsfollowed by the USSR (six times), and France, Great Britain, Germany, China, and the ex-Soviet 'Unified Team' (once each).

The United States hosted the Summer Olympic Games four times: the 1904 Games were held in St. Louis, Missouri; the 1932 and 1984 Games were both held in Los Angeles, California, and the 1996 Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia. The 2028 Games in Los Angeles will mark the fifth occasion on which the Summer Games have been hosted by the U.S.

In 2012, Great Britain hosted its third Summer Olympic Games in London, which became the first city ever to have hosted the Summer Olympic Games three times. The cities of Los Angeles, Paris, and Athens (excluding 1906) have each hosted two Summer Olympic Games. In 2024, France will host its third Summer Olympic Games in its capital, making Paris the second city ever to have hosted three Summer Olympics. And in 2028, Los Angeles will in turn become the third city ever to have hosted the Games three times.

Australia, France, Germany, Greece and Japan all hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice (with France and Australia planned to host in 2024 and 2032, respectively, taking both countries to three each). Tokyo, Japan, hosted the 2020 Games and became the first city outside the predominantly English-speaking and European nations to have hosted the Summer Olympics twice, having already hosted the Games in 1964;[2] it is also the largest city ever to have hosted, having grown considerably since 1964. The other countries to have hosted the Summer Olympics are Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Soviet Union, Spain, and Sweden, with each of these countries having hosted the Summer Games on one occasion.

Asia has hosted the Summer Olympics four times: in Tokyo (1964 and 2020), Seoul (1988), and Beijing (2008).

The 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were the first Summer Olympics to be held in South America and the first that was held completely during the local "winter" season. The only two countries in the Southern Hemisphere to have hosted the Summer Olympics have been Australia (1956, 2000, and upcoming 2032) and Brazil (2016), with Africa having yet to host any Summer Olympics.

Stockholm, Sweden, has hosted events at two Summer Olympics, having been sole host of the 1912 Games, and hosting the equestrian events at the 1956 Summer Olympics (which they are credited as jointly hosting with Melbourne, Australia).[3] Amsterdam, Netherlands, has also hosted events at two Summer Olympic Games, having been sole host of the 1928 Games and previously hosting two of the sailing races at the 1920 Summer Olympics. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Hong Kong provided the venues for the equestrian events, which took place in Sha Tin and Kwu Tung.

The International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894 when Pierre de Coubertin, a French pedagogue and historian, sought to promote international understanding through sporting competition. The first edition of The Olympic Games was held in Athens in 1896 and attracted just 245 competitors, of whom more than 200 were Greek, and only 14 countries were represented. Nevertheless, no international events of this magnitude had been organised before. Female athletes were not allowed to compete, though one woman, Stamata Revithi, ran the marathon course on her own, saying "If the committee doesn't let me compete I will go after them regardless".[4]

The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in Athens, Greece, from 6 to 15 April 1896. It was the first Olympic Games held in the Modern era. About 100,000 people attended for the opening of the games. The athletes came from 14 nations, with most coming from Greece. Although Greece had the most athletes, the U.S. finished with the most champions. 11 Americans placed first in their events vs. the 10 from Greece.[5] Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, consequently Athens was perceived to be an appropriate choice to stage the inaugural modern Games. It was unanimously chosen as the host city during a congress organised by Pierre de Coubertin in Paris, on 23 June 1894. The IOC was also established during this congress.

Despite many obstacles and setbacks, the 1896 Olympics were regarded as a great success. The Games had the largest international participation of any sporting event to that date. Panathinaiko Stadium, the first big stadium in the modern world, overflowed with the largest crowd ever to watch a sporting event.[6] The highlight for the Greeks was the marathon victory by their compatriot Spiridon Louis, a water carrier. He won in 2 hours 58 minutes and 50 seconds, setting off wild celebrations at the stadium. The most successful competitor was German wrestler and gymnast Carl Schuhmann, who won four gold medals.

Greek officials and the public were enthusiastic about the experience of hosting an Olympic Games. This feeling was shared by many of the athletes, who even demanded that Athens be the permanent Olympic host city. The IOC intended for subsequent Games to be rotated to various host cities around the world. The second Olympics was held in Paris.[7]

Four years later the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris attracted more than four times as many athletes, including 20 women, who were allowed to officially compete for the first time, in croquet, golf, sailing, and tennis. The Games were integrated with the Paris World's Fair and lasted over 5 months. It has been disputed which exact events were Olympic, as some events were for professionals, some had restricted eligibility, and others lacked international competitors.

Tensions caused by the RussoJapanese War and the difficulty of getting to St. Louis may have contributed to the fact that very few top-ranked athletes from outside the US and Canada took part in the 1904 Games.[8]

The "Second International Olympic Games in Athens", as they were called at the time, were held in 1906.[9] The IOC does not currently recognise these games as being official Olympic Games, although many historians do and credit the 1906 games with preventing the demise of the Olympics. The 1906 Athens games were the first of an alternating series of games to be held in Athens in even non-Olympic years, but the series failed to materialise. The games were more successful than the 1900 and 1904 games, with over 850 athletes competing, and contributed positively to the success of future games.

The 1908 London Games saw numbers rise again, as well as the first running of the marathon over its now-standard distance of 42.195 km (26 miles 385 yards). The first Olympic Marathon in 1896 (a male-only race) was raced at a distance of 40 km (24 miles 85 yards). The new marathon distance was chosen to ensure that the race finished in front of the box occupied by the British royal family. Thus the marathon had been 40km (24.9mi) for the first games in 1896, but was subsequently varied by up to 2km (1.2mi) due to local conditions such as street and stadium layout. At the six Olympic games between 1900 and 1920, the marathon was raced over six distances. The Games saw Great Britain winning 146 medals, 99 more than second-placed Americans, its best result to this day.

At the end of the 1908 marathon, the Italian runner Dorando Pietri was first to enter the stadium, but he was clearly in distress and collapsed of exhaustion before he could complete the event. He was helped over the finish line by concerned race officials and later disqualified for that. As compensation for the missing medal, Queen Alexandra gave Pietri a gilded silver cup. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a special report about the race in the Daily Mail.[10]

The Games continued to grow, attracting 2,504 competitors, to Stockholm in 1912, including the great all-rounder Jim Thorpe, who won both the decathlon and pentathlon. Thorpe had previously played a few games of baseball for a fee, and saw his medals stripped for this 'breach' of amateurism after complaints from Avery Brundage. They were reinstated in 1983, 30 years after his death. The Games at Stockholm were the first to fulfil Pierre de Coubertin's original idea. For the first time since the Games started in 1896, all five inhabited continents were represented with athletes competing in the same stadium.

The scheduled 1916 Summer Olympics were cancelled following the onset of World War I.

The 1920 Antwerp games in war-ravaged Belgium were a subdued affair, but again drew a record number of competitors. This record only stood until 1924, when the Paris Games involved 3,000 competitors, the greatest of whom was Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi. The "Flying Finn" won three team gold medals and the individual 1,500 and 5,000 meter runs, the latter two on the same day.[11]

The 1928 Amsterdam games was notable for being the first games which allowed females to compete at track & field athletics, and benefited greatly from the general prosperity of the times alongside the first appearance of sponsorship of the games, from the Coca-Cola Company. The 1928 games saw the introduction of a standard medal design with the IOC choosing Giuseppe Cassioli's depiction of Greek goddess Nike and a winner being carried by a crowd of people. This design was used up until 1972.[citation needed]

The 1932 Los Angeles games were affected by the Great Depression, which contributed to the low number of competitors.

The 1936 Berlin Games were seen by the German government as a golden opportunity to promote their ideology. The ruling Nazi Party commissioned film-maker Leni Riefenstahl to film the games. The result, Olympia, was widely considered to be a masterpiece, despite Hitler's theories of Aryan racial superiority being repeatedly shown up by "non-Aryan" athletes. In particular, African-American sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens won four gold medals. The 1936 Berlin Games also saw the introduction of the Torch Relay.[12]

Due to World War II, the 1940 Games (due to be held in Tokyo and temporarily relocated to Helsinki upon the outbreak of war) were cancelled. The 1944 Games were due to be held in London but were also cancelled; instead, London hosted the first games after the end of the war, in 1948.

The first post-war Games were held in 1948 in London, with both Germany and Japan excluded.[13] Dutch sprinter Fanny Blankers-Koen won four gold medals on the track, emulating Owens' achievement in Berlin.[14]

At the 1952 Helsinki Games, the USSR team competed for the first time and quickly emerged as one of the dominant teams, finishing second in the number of gold and overall medals won. Their immediate success might be explained by the advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete". The USSR entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis, hence violating amateur rules.[15][16] Finland made a legend of an amiable Czechoslovak Army lieutenant named Emil Ztopek, who was intent on improving on his single gold and silver medals from 1948. Having first won both the 10,000- and 5,000-meter races, he also entered the marathon, despite having never previously raced at that distance. Pacing himself by chatting with the other race leaders, Ztopek led from about halfway, slowly dropping the remaining contenders to win by two and a half minutes, and completed a trio of wins.[17]

The 1956 Melbourne Games were largely successful, with the exception of a water polo match between Hungary and the Soviet Union, which ended in a pitched battle between the teams on account of the Soviet invasion of Hungary.[18] The equestrian events were held in Stockholm due to a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Britain at the time and the strict quarantine laws of Australia.

At the 1960 Rome Games, a young light-heavyweight boxer named Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali, arrived on the scene. Ali would later throw his gold medal away in disgust after being refused service in a whites-only restaurant in his home town of Louisville, Kentucky.[19] He was awarded a new medal 36 years later at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.[20] Other notable performers in 1960 included Wilma Rudolph, a gold medallist in the 100meters, 200meters, and 4100 meters relay events.[21]

The 1964 Tokyo Games were the first to be broadcast worldwide on television, enabled by the recent advent of communication satellites.[22] These Games marked a turning point in the global visibility and popularity of the Olympics and are credited for heralding the modern age of telecommunications. Judo debuted as an official sport, and Dutch judoka Anton Geesink caused a stir when he won the final of the open weight division, defeating Akio Kaminaga in front of his home crowd.[23]

Performances at the 1968 Games in Mexico City were affected by the altitude of the host city.[24] These Games introduced the now-universal Fosbury flop, a technique which won American high jumper Dick Fosbury the gold medal.[25] In the medal award ceremony for the men's 200-meter race, black American athletes Tommie Smith (gold medal winner) and John Carlos (bronze medal winner) took a stand for civil rights by raising their black-gloved fists and wearing black socks in lieu of shoes.[26] The two athletes were subsequently expelled from the Games by the IOC. Vra slavsk, in protest against the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the controversial decision by the judges on the balance beam and floor, turned her head down and away from the Soviet flag while the national anthem was played during the medal ceremony.[27] She returned home as a heroine of the Czechoslovak people but was made an outcast by the Soviet-dominated government.

Politics again intervened at the 1972 Games in Munich, but this time with lethal consequences. A Palestinian terrorist group named Black September invaded the Olympic village and broke into the apartment of the Israeli delegation. They killed two Israelis and held nine others as hostages, demanding that Israel release numerous prisoners. When the Israeli government refused the terrorists' demands, the situation developed into a tense stand-off while negotiations continued. Eventually, the captors, still holding their hostages, were offered safe passage and taken to an airport, where they were ambushed by German security forces. In the ensuing firefight, 15 people were killed, including the nine captive Israeli athletes and five of the terrorists.[28] After much debate, the decision was taken to continue the Games, but the proceedings were understandably dominated by these events.[29] Some memorable athletic achievements did occur during these Games, notably the winning of a then-record seven gold medals by United States swimmer Mark Spitz, Finland's Lasse Virn taking back-to-back gold medals in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters, and the winning of three gold medals by Soviet gymnastic star Olga Korbut, who achieved a historic backflip off the high bar.

There was no such tragedy at the 1976 Montreal Games, but bad planning and fraud led to the cost of these Games far exceeding the budget. Costing $1.5billion (equivalent to $6.83billion in 2021),[30][31] the 1976 Summer Games were the most expensive in Olympic history (until the 2014 Winter Olympics) and it seemed, for a time, that the Olympics might no longer be a viable financial proposition. In retrospect, it is believed that contractors (suspected of being members of the Montreal Mafia) skimmed large sums of money from all levels of contracts while also profiting from the substitution of cheaper building materials of lesser quality, which may have contributed to the delays, poor construction, and excessive costs. In 1988, one such contractor, Giuseppe Zappia "was cleared of fraud charges that resulted from his work on Olympic facilities after two key witnesses died before testifying at his trial".[32] The 1976 Games were boycotted by many African nations as a protest against a recent tour of apartheid-run South Africa by the New Zealand national rugby union team.[33] The Romanian gymnast Nadia Comneci made history when she won the women's individual all-around gold medal with two of four possible perfect scores. She won two other individual events, with two perfect scores in the balance beam and all perfect scores in the uneven bars.[34] Lasse Virn repeated his double gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, making him the first athlete to ever win the distance double twice.[35]

Following the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, 66 nations, including the United States, Canada, West Germany, and Japan, boycotted the 1980 games held in Moscow. Eighty nations were represented at the Moscow Games the smallest number since 1956. The boycott contributed to the 1980 Games being a less publicised and less competitive affair, which was dominated by the host country.

In 1984 the Soviet Union and 13 Soviet allies reciprocated by boycotting the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Romania and Yugoslavia, notably are the only two countries from the Eastern Bloc that did attend the 1984 Olympics. These games were perhaps the first games of a new era to make a profit. Although a boycott led by the Soviet Union depleted the field in certain sports, 140 National Olympic Committees took part, which was a record at the time.[36] The Games were also the first time mainland China (People's Republic) participated.

According to British journalist Andrew Jennings, a KGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the IOC to undermine doping tests and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts".[37] On the topic of the 1980 Summer Olympics, a 1989 Australian study said "There is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner, who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might as well have been called the Chemists' Games."[37]

Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Dated prior to the country's decision to boycott the Games, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the programme, along with suggestions for further enhancements.[38] The communication, directed to the Soviet Union's head of track and field, was prepared by Dr. Sergei Portugalov of the Institute for Physical Culture. Portugalov was also one of the main figures involved in the implementation of the Russian doping programme prior to the 2016 Summer Olympics.[38]

The 1988 games, in Seoul, was very well planned but the games were tainted when many of the athletes, most notably men's 100 metres winner Ben Johnson, failed mandatory drug tests. Despite splendid drug-free performances by many individuals, the number of people who failed screenings for performance-enhancing chemicals overshadowed the games.

The 1992 Barcelona Games featured the admittance of players from one of the North American top leagues, the NBA, exemplified by but not limited to US basketball's "Dream Team". The 1992 games also saw the reintroduction to the Games of several smaller European states which had been incorporated into the Soviet Union since World War II. At these games, gymnast Vitaly Scherbo set an inaugural medal record of five individual gold medals at a Summer Olympics, and equaled the inaugural record set by Eric Heiden at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

By then the process of choosing a location for the Games had become a commercial concern; there were widespread allegations of corruption potentially affecting the IOC's decision process.

At the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, the highlight was 200 meters runner Michael Johnson annihilating the world record in front of a home crowd. Canadians savoured Donovan Bailey's recording gold medal run in the 100-meter dash. This was popularly felt to be an appropriate recompense for the previous national disgrace involving Ben Johnson. There were also emotional scenes, such as when Muhammad Ali, clearly affected by Parkinson's disease, lit the Olympic torch and received a replacement medal for the one he had discarded in 1960. The latter event took place in the basketball arena. The atmosphere at the Games was marred, however, when a bomb exploded during the celebration in Centennial Olympic Park. In June 2003, the principal suspect in this bombing, Eric Robert Rudolph, was arrested.

The 2000 Summer Olympics, held in Sydney, Australia, showcased individual performances by locals favorites Ian Thorpe in the pool and Cathy Freeman, an Indigenous Australian whose triumph in the 400 meters united a packed stadium., Briton Steve Redgrave who won a rowing gold medal in an unprecedented fifth consecutive Olympics, and Eric "the Eel" Moussambani, a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea, received wide media coverage when he completed the 100 meter freestyle swim in by far the slowest time in Olympic history. He nevertheless won the heat as both his opponents had been disqualified for false starts. His female compatriot Paula Barila Bolopa also received media attention for her record-slow and struggling but courageous performance. The Sydney Games also saw the first appearance of a joint North and South Korean contingent at the opening ceremonies, though they competed in all events as different teams. Controversy occurred in the Women's Artistic Gymnastics when the vaulting horse was set to the wrong height during the All-Around Competition.

In 2004, the Olympic Games returned to their birthplace in Athens, Greece. At least $7.2billion was spent on the 2004 Games, including $1.5billion on security. Michael Phelps won his first Olympic medals, tallying six gold and two bronze medals. Pyrros Dimas, winning a bronze medal, became the most decorated weightlifter of all time with four Olympic medals, three gold and one bronze. Although unfounded reports of potential terrorism drove crowds away from the preliminary competitions at the first weekend of the Olympics (1415August 2004), attendance picked up as the Games progressed. A third of the tickets failed to sell,[39] but ticket sales still topped figures from the Seoul and Barcelona Olympics (1988 and 1992).[citation needed] IOC President Jacques Rogge characterised Greece's organisation as outstanding and its security precautions as flawless.[40] All 202 NOCs participated at the Athens Games with over 11,000 participants.

The 2008 Summer Olympics was held in Beijing, People's Republic of China. Several new events were held, including the new discipline of BMX for both men and women. Women competed in the steeplechase for the first time. The fencing programme was expanded to include all six events for both men and women; previously, women had not been able to compete in team foil or sabre events, although women's team pe and men's team foil were dropped for these Games. Marathon swimming events were added, over the distance of 10km (6.2mi). Also, the doubles events in table tennis were replaced by team events.[41] American swimmer Michael Phelps set a record for gold medals at a single Games with eight, and tied the record of most gold medals by a single competitor previously held by both Eric Heiden and Vitaly Scherbo. Another notable star of the Games was Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who became the first male athlete ever to set world records in the finals of both the 100 and 200metres in the same Games. Equestrian events were held in Hong Kong.

London held the 2012 Summer Olympics, becoming the first city to host the Olympic Games three times. In his closing address, Jacques Rogge described the Games as "Happy and glorious". The host nation won 29 gold medals, the best haul for Great Britain since the 1908 Games in London. The United States returned to the top of the medal table after China dominated in 2008. The IOC had removed baseball and softball from the 2012 programme. The London Games were successful on a commercial level because they were the first in history to completely sell out every ticket, with as many as 1million applications for 40,000 tickets for both the Opening Ceremony and the 100m Men's Sprint Final. Such was the demand for tickets to all levels of each event that there was controversy over seats being set aside for sponsors and National Delegations which went unused in the early days. A system of reallocation was put in place so the empty seats were filled throughout the Games.

Rio de Janeiro in Brazil hosted the 2016 Summer Olympics, becoming the first South American city to host the Olympics, the second Olympic host city in Latin America, after Mexico City in 1968, as well as the third city in the Southern Hemisphere to host the Olympics after Melbourne, Australia, in 1956 and Sydney, Australia, in 2000. The preparation for these Games was overshadowed by controversies, including political instability and an economic crisis in the host country, health and safety concerns surrounding the Zika virus, and significant pollution in the Guanabara Bay. However, these concerns were superseded by a state-sponsored doping scandal involving Russian athletes at the Winter Olympics held two years earlier, which affected the participation of its athletes in these Games.[42]

The 2020 Summer Olympics were originally scheduled to take place from 24July to 9August 2020 in Tokyo, Japan. The city was the fifth in history to host the Games twice and the first Asian city to have this title. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the IOC and the Tokyo Organising Committee announced that the 2020 Games were to be delayed until 2021, marking the first time that the Olympic Games have been postponed. Unlike previous Olympics, these Games took place without spectators due to concerns over COVID-19 and a state of emergency imposed in the host city.[43][44][45] Nevertheless, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games featured many memorable moments and feats of technical excellence. One star of the games, the US gymnast Simone Biles, gracefully bowed out to focus on her mental health, but later returned to claim an individual bronze medal. Norway's Karsten Warholm smashed his own world record in the 400m hurdles.

There has been a total of 42 sports, spanning 55 disciplines, included in the Olympic programme at one point or another in the history of the Games. The schedule has comprised 33 sports for recent Summer Olympics (2020); the 2012 Games featured 26 sports because of the removal of baseball and softball.[46]

The various Olympic Sports federations are grouped under a common umbrella association, called the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF).

Current sportNo longer included

Qualification rules for each of the Olympic sports are set by the International Sports Federation (IF) that governs that sport's international competition.[47]

For individual sports, competitors typically qualify by attaining a certain place in a major international event or on the IF's ranking list. There is a general rule that a maximum of three individual athletes may represent each nation per competition. National Olympic Committees (NOCs) may enter a limited number of qualified competitors in each event, and the NOC decides which qualified competitors to select as representatives in each event if more have attained the benchmark than can be entered.[48]

Nations most often qualify teams for team sports through continental qualifying tournaments, in which each continental association is given a certain number of spots in the Olympic tournament. Each nation may be represented by no more than one team per competition; a team consists of just two people in some sports.

The IOC divides Summer Olympic sports into five categories (A E) based on popularity, gauged by six criteria: television viewing figures (40%), internet popularity (20%), public surveys (15%), ticket requests (10%), press coverage (10%), and number of national federations (5%). The category of a sport determines the share of Olympic revenue received by that sport's International Federation.[49][50] Sports that were new to the 2016 Olympics (rugby and golf) have been placed in Category E.

The current categories are:

a Aquatics encompasses artistic swimming, diving, swimming, and water polo.

The table below uses official data provided by the IOC.

Defunct nation

Number of occurrences

The IOC has never decided which events of the early Games were "Olympic" and which were not.[51] The founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, ceded that determination to the organisers of those Games.

Original post:

Summer Olympic Games - Wikipedia

This is a list of host cities of the Olympic Games, both summer and winter, since the modern Olympics began in 1896. Since then, summer and winter games have usually celebrated a four-year period known as an Olympiad; summer and winter games normally held in staggered even years. There have been 29 Summer Olympic Games held in 23 cities, and 24 Winter Olympic Games held in 21 cities. In addition, three summer and two winter editions of the games were scheduled to take place but later cancelled due to war: Berlin (summer) in 1916; SapporoGarmisch-Partenkirchen (winter) and TokyoHelsinki (summer) in 1940; and Cortina d'Ampezzo (winter) and London (summer) in 1944. The 1906 Intercalated Olympics were officially sanctioned and held in Athens. However, in 1949, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to unrecognize the 1906 Games.[1][2] The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were postponed for the first time in the Olympics history to summer 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic with the 2022 Winter Olympics being held roughly six months later in Beijing.[3][4]

Four cities have been chosen by the IOC to host upcoming Olympic Games: Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics, MilanCortina d'Ampezzo for the 2026 Winter Olympics, Los Angeles for the 2028 Summer Olympics, and Brisbane for the 2032 Summer Olympics.

In 2022, Beijing became the first city that has held both the summer and the winter Olympic Games. Ten cities will have hosted the Olympic Games more than once: Athens (1896 and 2004 Summer Olympics), Paris (1900, 1924 and 2024 Summer Olympics), London (1908, 1948 and 2012 Summer Olympics), St. Moritz (1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics), Lake Placid (1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics), Los Angeles (1932, 1984 and 2028 Summer Olympics), Cortina d'Ampezzo (1956 and 2026 Winter Olympics), Innsbruck (1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics), Tokyo (1964 and 2020 Summer Olympics) and Beijing (2008 Summer Olympics and 2022 Winter Olympics). Stockholm hosted the 1912 Summer Olympics and the equestrian portion of the 1956 Summer Olympics. London became the first city to have hosted three Games with the 2012 Summer Olympics. Paris will become the second city to do this with the 2024 Summer Olympics, followed by Los Angeles as the third in 2028.

The United States has hosted a total of eight Olympic Games, more than any other country, followed by France with five and Japan with four editions. The United Kingdom, Canada, Italy and Germany have each hosted three Games.

The Games have primarily been hosted in the regions of Europe (30 editions) and the Americas (13 editions); eight Games have been hosted in Asia and two have been hosted in Oceania. Rio de Janeiro became South America's first Olympic host city with the 2016 Summer Olympics. Africa has yet to host an Olympic Games. Other major geographic regions which have never hosted the Olympics include the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean. Between the first Winter Olympics in 1924 and the last ones to be held in the same year as the Summer Olympics in 1992, the Summer and Winter games took place in the same country three times.

Host cities are selected by the IOC membership, usually seven years in advance.[5] The selection process lasts approximately two years. In the first stage, any city in the world may submit an application to become a host city. After 10 months, the Executive Board of the IOC decides which applicant cities will become official candidates as based on the recommendation of a working group that reviews the applications. In a second stage, the candidate cities are investigated thoroughly by an Evaluation Commission, which then submits a final short list of cities to be considered for selection. The host city is then chosen by vote of the IOC session, a general meeting of IOC members.[6]

Cancelled Games Postponed to the following year

5 times

4 times (no entry)

3 times

2 times

1 time

Never held games

4 times

3 times

2 times

1 time

Never held games

First year

Last year

SummerOlympics

WinterOlympics

See more here:

List of Olympic Games host cities - Wikipedia

1. Mexico launches bid for 2036 Summer Games  Reuters
2. Mexico Bids To Host 2036 Olympics  Barron's
3. Mexican bid launched to host 2036 Olympics  RTE.ie
4. Mexico launches bid for 2036 Olympics  The West Australian
5. Olympics: Mexico announces bid to host 2036 Games, 68 years after it last held the event  Scroll.in
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Mexico launches bid for 2036 Summer Games - Reuters

TOKYO As the athletes finished marching into the stadium for the closing ceremony of the 32nd Summer Olympics on Sunday night, the announcer asked for a big round of applause. But there simply werent enough people in the stands to make much noise. And the flashiest component of the ceremony, a formation of the five Olympic rings by tiny points of light, was invisible live in the stadium. The magic of its special effects played only on large screens and to television audiences.

And so one of the strangest Olympics in recent memory ended much as they began, with reduced cohorts of athletes waving to cameras and volunteer dancers rather than spectators, and rows of empty seats serving as reminders of a pandemic that could not be brought to heel by messaging about the healing power of the Games.

Yet perhaps more than any recent Olympics, the tournament was an athletic reality show, inviting viewers to seek respite from the frustration and tragedy of the past 18 months. The drama of competition and bouts of rousing sportsmanship offered diversion from the daily counts of coronavirus cases the ones within the Olympic bubble and the vastly larger numbers outside of it.

There were upsets: The U.S. womens soccer team fell to Canada in a semifinal; Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito won Japans first gold medal in table tennis over the Chinese world champions. Naomi Osaka, after lighting the Olympic cauldron for Japan, was eliminated in the third round of her tennis tournament, denying the host country a potential gold medal moment it had dearly hoped for.

There were history-making triumphs: Allyson Felix surpassed Carl Lewis as the most decorated American Olympian in track and field, and Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya defended his gold medal in the mens marathon.

And who could resist the British diver Tom Daley, who was constantly spotted knitting in the stands?

Outside the stadium before the ceremony on Sunday, Ryogo Saita, 45, who was walking with his 7-year-old son, said they had enjoyed watching on television as Yuto Horigome captured skateboardings first gold medal for Japan. Still, with daily coronavirus infections more than doubling in Tokyo since the Games started, Saita said he was concerned. But people also enjoy the sports, he said. I think its a good thing that they happened. Its like Im battling two emotions.

Although organizers argued that the Japanese public and international audiences had embraced the Olympics after months of controversy, the numbers from NBCUniversal in the United States, the largest broadcaster at the Games, showed steep drops from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. In Japan, a smaller proportion of viewers watched the Games than when Tokyo last hosted the event, in 1964.

Many of the performances in the closing ceremony elicited a lighthearted joy that the more somber opening ceremony did not. In one segment, actors and dancers dressed in street fashion frolicked around the center of the stadium, meant to evoke a park, with capoeira dancers, stunt bikers, jugglers and double Dutch jumpers, a poignant demonstration of a side of Tokyo that most Olympic visitors never got to see.

In his concluding remarks, Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, thanked the people of Japan and noted that no organizing committee had ever had to put on a postponed Games before. We did it together! he said, to lukewarm applause.

The closing festivities, based on the theme Moving Forward: Worlds We Share, was the last chance for the organizers to stage a spectacle intended to keep everyone on message about an event and an entire movement that had started to show cracks before the Games even began.

Aug. 8, 2021, 12:43 p.m. ET

Politics, which the I.O.C. assiduously insists have nothing to do with the Games, intruded in Tokyo. Kristina Timanovskaya, a Belarusian sprinter who sought protection as her country tried to force her home after she criticized her coaches, was granted asylum in Poland. The I.O.C. took five days to strip the Olympic credentials of the coaches involved in the attempt to send her back to Belarus.

More broadly, the committees decision making came under close scrutiny in Tokyo. Even before the pandemic, organizers pushed to stage the Tokyo Games during its most brutally hot weeks in order to maximize broadcasting revenues. That decision had clear repercussions, with a tennis player leaving the court in a wheelchair and events in soccer and athletics being rescheduled at the last minute. The fact that the Games went ahead during the pandemic despite strong public opposition in Japan showed the undemocratic principles that underpin the organization.

There is no question that the Tokyo Olympics stripped the lacquer off the wider Olympic project for everyday people to see, said Jules Boykoff, a former Olympic soccer player and an expert in sports politics at Pacific University. Ive heard some people talk about how the Olympics are this huge political economic force with sports attached to the side of it.

Indeed, athletes advocates have accused the I.O.C. of shortchanging the talent that make the Games possible, given that such a small sliver of the organizations revenues are allocated directly to the competitors. Most of the funds are funneled through national Olympic committees and sporting federations, according to an analysis of I.O.C. funding by Global Athlete, an athletes group, and the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto.

The I.O.C. is supporting an industry and administrators, said Rob Koehler, the director general of Global Athlete. But are they supporting athletes? The proof is in the pudding: no.

At the Tokyo Games, critics questioned the I.O.C.s commitment to enforcing disciplinary actions. Athletes from Russia, a country officially banned from the Olympics, competed under the banner of R.O.C., the acronym for the Russian Olympic Committee. But it was difficult for a casual observer to see how Russia was bearing any real consequences of an enormous state-orchestrated doping campaign as its leaders gloated over its athletes many medals.

On Sunday, even as Tokyo organizers officially passed the Olympic flag to Paris for the next Summer Games, the real specter lurking behind the feel-good moments was the Winter Olympics in Beijing, which are scheduled to open in February.

With the postponement of the Tokyo Games by a year, organizers will have just six months to prepare for the next Olympics.

Here again, the actions or inaction of the I.O.C. came under sharp examination. Officials, including Bach, avoided answering questions about how the committee planned to address the fact that the Games are to be held in a country that has been condemned for committing genocide and crimes against humanity for its repression of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities.

Large countries most prominently the United States will have to decide in the coming months how they might respond to the Games in Beijing.

At the same time, the pandemic is still likely to be a factor. Just as Japan is dealing with a new wave of infections, China, too, is battling new outbreaks of the Delta variant in several provinces and has already imposed de facto lockdowns.

The countrys use of sports to promote nationalism was on display at the Tokyo Games, where critics pounced on Japanese athletes in particular if they prevailed over Chinese competitors.

But the Olympics pose risks to the ruling Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping.

The Olympics is either an opportunity to look great, or it could introduce a whole lot of instability, said Stephen R. Nagy, a professor in politics and international relations at International Christian University in Tokyo. He cited the re-emergence of the coronavirus and possible protests by athletes in Beijing.

But as the cauldron was extinguished and the athletes filed out of the stadium, perhaps the biggest legacy of the Tokyo Games was how it underscored the costs of hosting an Olympics.

For future hosts, said Shihoko Goto, a senior associate for northeast Asia at the Wilson Center, a research institute in Washington, the question is whether the people of those governments are behind the government effort and the sacrifices that have to be made to put on these big events.

Hikari Hida contributed reporting.

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Olympics End as They Began: Strangely - The New York Times

Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

The Tokyo Olympics have met numerous challenges, from postponing the event in 2020 to near-empty stadiums in 2021 due to the pandemic. However, a historical challenge when it comes to the games is the massive cost. The current Olympics have already cost Japan over 15 billion dollars, much more than the original seven billion dollar proposal. So why do cities bid for the Olympics, when it is very likely that they will lose money?

Professor Kenneth Shropshire says the Olympics introduce your city to the rest of the world. For example, in 1968 he says, Mexico City wanted to show that Latin America was a place to visit and, in 1984, Los Angeles wanted to illustrate that it wasn't just Hollywood. It was also part of the Pacific Rim. Professor Victor Matheson notes the positive impact on infrastructure that the Olympic games can bring to a city plus the potential boost to local tourism.

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Why Host The Olympics? : The Indicator from Planet Money - NPR

TOKYO (AP) It began with a virus and a yearlong pause. It ended with a typhoon blowing through and, still, a virus. In between: just about everything.

The Tokyo Olympics, christened with 2020 but held in mid-2021 after being interrupted for a year by the coronavirus, glided to their conclusion in a COVID-emptied stadium Sunday night as an often surreal mixed bag for Japan and for the world.

A rollicking closing ceremony with the theme Worlds We Share an optimistic but ironic notion at this human moment featured everything from stunt bikes to intricate light shows as it tried to convey a celebratory and liberating atmosphere for athletes after a tense two weeks. It pivoted to a live feed from Paris, host of the 2024 Summer Games. And with that, the strangest Olympic Games on record closed their books for good.

Held in the middle of a resurging pandemic, rejected by many Japanese and plagued by months of administrative problems, these Games presented logistical and medical obstacles like no other, offered up serious conversations about mental health and, when it came to sport, delivered both triumphs and a few surprising shortfalls.

From the outset, expectations were middling at best, apocalyptic at worst. Even Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, said hed worried that these could become the Olympic Games without a soul. But, he said, what we have seen here is totally different.

You were faster, you went higher, you were stronger because we all stood together in solidarity, Bach told gathered Olympians as he closed the Games. This was even more remarkable given the many challenges you had to face because of the pandemic. In these difficult times, you give the world the most precious of gifts: hope.

For the first time since the pandemic began, he said, the entire world came together.

He overstated it a bit. At these Games, even the word together was fraught. Spectators were kept at bay. A patchwork of rules kept athletes masked and apart for much of medal ceremonies, yet saw them swapping bodily fluids in some venues. That was less about being remiss than about being real: Risks that could be mitigated were, but at the same time events had to go on.

Athletes perseverance became a central story. Mental health claimed bandwidth as never before, and athletes revealed their stories and struggles in vulnerable, sometimes excruciating fashion.

Japans fourth Olympics, held 57 years after the 1964 Games reintroduced the country after its World War II defeat, represented a planet trying to come together at a moment in history when disease and circumstance and politics had splintered it apart.

The closing ceremony Sunday reflected that and, at times, nudged the proceedings toward a sci-fi flavor. As athletes stood in the arena for the final pomp, digital scoreboards at either end of the stadium featured what organizers called a fan video matrix, a Zoom call-like screen of videos uploaded by spectators showing themselves cheering at home.

Even the parade of athletes carrying national flags thousands of Olympians, masked and unmasked, clustering together before fanning out into the world again was affected. Volunteers carried some flags into the stadium, presumably because of rules requiring athletes to leave the country shortly after their events concluded.

In front of such formidable backdrops, athletic excellence burst through, from the Games first gold medal (Chinas Yang Qian in the 10-meter air rifle on July 24) to their last (Serbia defeating Greece in mens water polo on Sunday afternoon).

Among the highlights: Allyson Felix taking a U.S.-record 11th medal in track, then stepping away from the Olympic stage. American quintuple gold medalist Caeleb Dressels astounding performance in the pool. The emergence of surfing,skateboarding and sport climbing as popular, and viable, Olympic sports. Host country Japans medal haul 58, its most ever.

Any Olympics is a microcosm of the world it reflects. These Games runup, and the two weeks of the Games themselves, featured tens of thousands of spit-in-a-vial COVID tests for athletes, staff, journalists and visitors. That produced barely more than 400 positives, a far cry from the rest of non-Olympic bubble Japan, where surges in positive cases provoked the government to declare increasingly widespread states of emergency.

And, of course, there was that other microcosm of human life that the Games revealed the reckoning with mental and emotional health, and the pressure put on top-tier athletes to compete hard and succeed at almost any cost. The interruption of that pressurized narrative, led by the struggles of gymnast Simone Biles and tennis player Naomi Osaka in particular, permeated these Games and ignited the spark of an athlete-driven conversation about stress, tolerance and inclusivity that everyone expects to continue.

While Tokyo is handing off the Summer Games baton to Paris for 2024, the delay has effectively crammed two Olympics together. The next Winter Games convenes in just six months in another major Asian metropolis Beijing, Japans rival in East Asia and home to a much more authoritarian government that is expected to administer its Games in a more draconian and restrictive way, virus or no virus.

Beyond that, Paris organizers promised Sunday to take sport out of its traditional spaces and connect with new audiences in new ways in 2024 presuming, of course, the absence of a protracted pandemic. They went live from the closing to excited groups of fans clustered near the Eiffel Tower, a crowded public scene that Tokyo didnt allow.

In recent weeks, lots of people officials, athletes, journalists have been chewing over how these Tokyo Games will be remembered. Thats up to history, of course, but there are hints.

The runup was messy and disputed. The days of competition were fraught but, in general, without incident other than sporting milestones. Even a moderate earthquake rumbled through and was quickly forgotten. Scattered protests of the Games including one outside the stadium Sunday night reflected a portion of Japans sentiment, though certainly not all. The expenses upwards of $15 billion were colossal and will echo in Tokyo long after athletes are gone.

What are the Olympic Games supposed to be? A politics-free sporting event, as the IOC insists? A bonanza for sponsors and broadcasters? One small step toward world peace? Despite all the yarn-spinning, their identity remains up in the air and that fundamental question remains.

But as the cauldron was snuffed out Sunday night after the Pandemic Olympics concluded, its easy to argue that Tokyo can take its place as a Games that didnt fail as one that overcame a lot to even happen at all. And as vaccines roll out, variants emerge and lockdowns re-emerge, another city and government Beijing, the Chinese capital must grapple with the very same question.

In the meantime, the program for Tokyos closing ceremony, outlining its Worlds We Share theme, captured the effect of the pandemic and the virtual worlds and separation anxiety to which it has given birth.

We are in a new normal, and this edition of the Games were a different affair, it said. Even if we cannot be together, we can share the same moment. And that is something that we will never forget.

___

Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation for The Associated Press, was APs director of Asia-Pacific news from 2014 to 2018. This is his sixth Olympics. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/anthonyted

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Mixed bag: Erratic Pandemic Olympics wind to a nuanced end - Associated Press

It seems fitting that the first defining moment of the 2020 Tokyo Olympicsheld not in 2020 but in 2021, in a bubble meant to separate it from Tokyowas also its most disconcerting: Simone Biles, high in the air, looking lost. Having performed one and a half of the planned two and a half twists of her vault, she suddenly flung her arms open to stop her spinning. Her body torqued, her head going one way while her legs went another, and then pitched forward, stumbling and lunging into a landing. It would have felt strange to watch any gymnast vault so awkwardly, but it was especially shocking to see it from Biles, who, normally, has unparalleled body control, and an unerring sense of herself in the air.

It also seems fitting that the second defining moment of the Games came when Biles recovered in an unexpected way, moments later, by telling her coaches and teammates that she was pulling out of the team competition. A woman whose name has become synonymous with pushing the limits of the body and mind had hit hers, and she had the strength to say so.

Initially, she said later, she was worried about her body as much as her mind. Given her loss of air senseher case of the twisties, as gymnasts evocatively call itshe knew that continuing in the competition could be dangerous. At the end of the day, its, like, we want to walk out of here, not be dragged out here on a stretcher, she told reporters. I just dont trust myself as much as I used to. And I dont know if its ageIm a little bit more nervous when I do gymnastics. I feel like Im also not having as much fun, and I know that.

The connection between the body and mind can be mysterious. Biles has won national and world championships with kidney stones and broken toes. She has, as the sportswriting clich has it, overcome every kind of adversity: the long odds of a difficult childhood; overt racism from envious competitors and their coaches; and, horrifically, sexual abuse at the hands of Larry Nassar, a team doctor whose predatory behavior was enabled by the very organizations that she continued, painfully, to representin part, she said, to hold it to account.

Athletes have always had bouts of the yips. Athletes have always been prone to alcoholism, anorexia, and other manifestations of mental illness. They have not always had the support, publicly or privately, to address these problems. But the climate has been shifting, and the connotations of terms that we associate with great athletes have been changing. Perseverance without considering the conditions that one is enduring can be arrogance, or recklessness. Toughness can lead to lasting damage. Fearlessness doesnt necessarily mean a free mind. In fact, we now know that some of those who were most often called fearlessyoung female gymnasts, flying and tumbling in astonishing ways under extreme pressurewere trapped in a system that cultivated fear. People can do a lot of things if they think they dont have a choice.

I didnt quit, Biles wrote, on Instagram, as she documented her difficulties performing skills that had been, to her, second nature. My mind & body are simply not in sync. The twisties had struck her before, she explained, though this was the first time she had lost her ability to twist on every apparatus. Could be triggered by stress I hear but Im also not sure how true that is, she added. Other gymnasts have said that the twisties can be exacerbated by stress or difficulties out of the gym but that they can also strike for seemingly no reason at all. Its the craziest feeling ever, not having an inch of control over your body, Biles went on. Whats even scarier is since I have no idea where I am in the air I also have NO idea how Im going to land.

Its impossible to say what part, if any, the bizarre circumstances of the Olympics played in her loss of air sense: the empty stands, the yearlong delay, the mounting pressure to be a redemptive force, the relentlessness of the pandemics progress. Regardless, Biles has been open about what a difficult year, and Olympics, it has been. The last thing Biles normally does before she competes is look in the stands to find her family. In Tokyo, for the first time in her career, her parents werent there to watch her perform.

When these Olympics began, Tokyo was in a state of emergency, and, throughout the Olympics, day after day, the city set new national highs for cases of the coronavirus. The news about the virus is worsening again almost everywhere. As Americans were tallying medals in the pool and on the track, U.S. officials back home were scrambling to cope with the Delta variant. What was supposed to be a summer of celebration, a chance to appreciate the power of community and the human spiritthe ideals of the Olympics, more or lesswas turning into a time of confusion and uncertainty.

It has been hard to know how to feel about these Olympic Games in such a climate. The Olympics are always riven by the tension between elation and despairand joy has been as visible as ever in Tokyo. It was on the shocked face of the Norwegian Karsten Warholm as he clutched his head and screamed in disbelief at the time on the clock45.94 secondsafter he beat the American Rai Benjamin in the mens four-hundred-metre hurdles. They had pushed each other, and the sport, to a place that didnt seem possible, at least not yet: both men shattered the world record. The joy was in a crowded room in Minnesota where the gymnast Sunisa Lees family and friends watched her win the all-around gold. It was visible in the exhausted smile of Sydney McLaughlin after she caught Dalilah Muhummad in the final stretch of the womens four-hundred-metre hurdles. (She set a world record, too.) I felt it watching Chinas Quan Hongchan in the womens ten-metre platform dive, as she spun through the air, toes pointed, a pike like a clamp, and slipped into the water almost without a splash.

The familiar pain was also present. I felt it watching Carli Lloyd sitting on a ball and clutching her head after the U.S. womens national soccer team lost in the semifinals to Canada, and learning that Japans Kenichiro Fumita had sobbed as he spoke to the press after winning the silver medal in Greco-Roman wrestling, apologizing for this shameful result.

But there was also, among some of the athletes, a new, or newly prominent, way of speaking about loss and disappointment and pressure. After the American Noah Lyles took the bronze in the mens two-hundred-metre dash, a race hed expected to win, he spoke about his mental-health struggles and the difficulties of the past year. He talked about his brother Josephus, who had also been training for the Olympics, but who battled injuries and did not make the team. Sometimes I think to myself, This should be him, Lyles said, in tears. Lyles said that, in the past, antidepressants and therapy had helped him, and that he wanted people who were watching to be aware of that. (He said he had gone off the medication before the Olympics, because he thought that might help his performance.) I knew there was a lot of people out there like me whos scared to say something or to even start that journey, he said. I want you to know that its O.K. to not feel good, and you can go out and talk to somebody professionally, or even get on medication, because this is a serious issue and you dont want to wake up one day and just think, You know, I dont want to be here anymore. He spoke, too, about everything track has given him, the way it has been a refuge, and the doors it has opened for other interests in his life, such as fashion and art. Shoot, he said, Im going to the Met Gala.

Lyles was not the only American track star to talk about mental health. After winning silver in shot put, Raven Saunders held her arms over her head in an X once the winners national anthem was over, in defiance of the I.O.C.s ban on protesting on the podium. The X was for oppressed people, she said, explaining that the planning for the protest took place over group text with American athletes from several sports. Im a Black female, Im queer, and I talk about mental-health awareness, she told NBC. I deal with depression, anxiety, and P.T.S.D., a lot. I represent being at that intersection. Late in the week, the sprinter Allyson Felix, on the verge of surpassing Carl Lewiss American record for Olympic medals in track and field, wrote, on Instagram, about fear. Im afraid of letting people down, she wrote. Of letting myself down. I hold myself to such high standards and Im realizing as Im sitting here the night before my final individual Olympic final that in a lot of ways Ive let my performances define my worth. Ive been afraid that my worth is tied to whether or not I win or lose. But right now Ive decided to leave that fear behind. To understand that I am enough. She added, Im not sharing this note for me. Im sharing it for any other athletes who are defining themselves by their medal count. Im writing this for any woman who defines her worth based on whether or not shes married or has kids. Im writing it for anyone who thinks that the people you look up to on TV are any different than you. I get afraid just like you, but you are so much more than enough.

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The Tokyo Olympics Indelible Moments of Loss and Solidarity - The New Yorker

Toshiko Ishii, 64, who runs a traditional hotel in the citys Taito Ward, spent over $180,000 converting the buildings first floor into an eatery in anticipation of a flood of tourists.

It was already a bit of a risk, and when the pandemic hit, Ms. Ishii became worried that she might have to shut down. Even with the Olympics, she has had no guests for weeks.

Theres nothing you can really do about the Olympics or the coronavirus, but Im worried, she said. We dont know when this will end, and I have a lot of doubts about how long we can keep the business going.

Pandemic or no, reality was bound to fall short of the grand expectations set by Japanese leaders.

They pitched Tokyo 2020 as an opportunity to show the world a Japan that had shaken off decades of economic stagnation and the devastation of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that touched off the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Appealing to nostalgia for the 1964 Olympics, when Japan wowed the world with its advanced technology and economic strength, Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister, framed the 2020 Olympics as an ad campaign for a cool, confident country that was the equal of a rising China.

After decades of perceived decline, more and more Japanese, the elder generation, senior people, wanted to remember, wanted to repeat that successful experience again in 21st-century Japan, said Shunya Yoshimi, a professor of sociology at Tokyo University who has written several books about Japans relationship to the events.

Instead, the pandemic brought a sense of fear and uncertainty that were worsened by the decisions of Japans leaders.

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How the Olympics Hurt Tokyo's Economy - The New York Times

When Tokyo bids farewell to the Olympics this weekend, few people there will be sad to see it go. The Japanese public overwhelmingly opposed hosting the postponed Summer Games, fearing that it could exacerbate the countrys COVID-19 outbreak. In the final week of the competition, Japan broke a record no one wanted, reporting more than 14,000 cases a dayits highest since the pandemic began.

Whether staging the Games was worth the public-health risk or the staggering price tag that came with it will ultimately be for Japan to decide. But as the world looks ahead to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, and debates participating in them despite Chinas well-documented human-rights abuses in Xinjiang and elsewhere, perhaps the question isnt when and where the Games should be held, but whether the modern Olympicsan international spectacle that has become increasingly synonymous with overspending, corruption, and autocratic regimesare worth having at all.

Fans of the competition argue that the Olympics are at least as important today as they were when they made their modern debut in the late 19th century. At the time, Pierre de Coubertin, the French historian and founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Olympics governing body, billed the competition as a peace movement that would bring the world together through sport. In the run-up to Tokyo, Olympic organizers stressed that these Games would be a beacon of hope and unity during a time of unprecedented suffering and isolation.

And, in some ways, they have been. Despite their somber opening ceremony and the absence of spectators, this years Olympics delivered on the pomp, pageantry, and athleticism that weve come to expect from the worlds largest sporting festival, including such notable moments as Italy and Qatars shared gold-medal finish in the mens high-jump competition and the American gymnast Simone Biless decision to withdraw from the competition, highlighting the importance of athletes mental well-being. But behind the veneer of pageantry and nationalism lie more troubling trendsones that close observers of the Olympics describe as endemic issues the IOC has so far proved unable, or unwilling, to address.

The first problem is the sheer cost of the Games. While hosting an Olympics is regarded by many cities as one of the worlds greatest honors, its also one of the most expensive. With few exceptions, the Olympics have been a money-losing endeavor for their hostsone that starts with cities paying tens of millions of dollars just to submit a bid and ends with them spending several times more than their budget. (Tokyos Games, for example, were initially expected to cost $7.3 billion; theyre now projected to total closer to $28 billion). As a result, many host cities are saddled with years of debt, not to mention the burden of maintaining abandoned stadiums and other white-elephant facilities that quickly fall into disrepair.

Hosting the Olympics is an incredible boondoggle, Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, a historian and the author of Dropping the Torch, a book about the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympics, told me. Its a great way to lose money. (An IOC spokesperson disputed this characterization, citing a study which concluded that the cost of the Olympic Games from 2000 to 2018 were covered by revenue. This report, however, focuses on the profitability of Games from the perspective of the Olympic Committees rather than the host cities. It also excludes capital costs such as transportation upgrades on the grounds that they are not needed to stage the Games.)

Read: 3 reasons why hosting the Olympics is a losers game

The bleak economic prospects explain why interest in hosting the Games has waned in recent years. Numerous referenda have shown that when populations are given a say in whether their city should take on an Olympics, the answer is almost always an emphatic no. But the economic challenge of hosting the games also explains another recurring issue: the weaponization of the Olympics by repressive states. After all, unlike democracies, authoritarian regimes dont need to worry about referenda. And although the cost of running an Olympics is high, the Games grant their host country the ability to showcase its might and launder its reputation on the world stage.

Although the IOC has attracted criticism for its record of partnering with authoritarian regimes, that hasnt been enough to compel the governing body to change tack. Part of the reason is that, in some instances, authoritarian states have been the only bidders left standing. Such was the case in the bid for the 2022 Winter Games, after Oslo, the favorite, withdrew over cost issues, leaving just two contenders: Beijing, which hosted the 2008 Summer Games, and Almaty, in Kazakhstan. Beijing won.

But perhaps the primary reason the IOC hasnt excluded autocracies from the Games is because its simply not in the committees interest to do so. According to a 2017 report by Thomas Knecke and Michiel de Nooij, keeping good working relations with authoritarian governments helps the IOC to secure the future of its main revenue driver, the Olympic Games, thus providing for its own future. Put simply, partnering with autocracies pays. Given the diverse participation in the Olympic Games, the IOC must remain neutral on all global political issues, an IOC spokesperson told The Atlantic, adding that the choice of host does not mean that the IOC takes a position with regard to the political structure, social circumstances, or human rights standard in [the] country.

Critics of the Olympics have put forth a number of recommendations for reform, including giving the Games a permanent home in Greece, thereby honoring their ancient roots while also bringing an end to the bidding wars and overspending that have overshadowed their purpose of bringing the world together. But such reforms have largely been ignored by the IOC, which opted instead to put forward its own set of recommendations, including encouraging host cities to rely on existing or temporary sporting facilities and launching an Olympic TV channel.

Read: What if the Olympics were always held in the same city?

To say they are not willing to make significant changes to their business model is to make one of the most egregious understatements that I can conjure on this topic, Jules Boykoff, an international expert in sports politics and the author of multiple books on the Olympics, told me. Having spent time in London, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo in the run-up to the 2012, 2016, and 2020 Games, respectively, Boykoff noted that many of the issues seen in the Olympicsincluding internal displacement, corruption, and greenwashingtravel with the Games. Theyre not Tokyo problems; theyre not Rio problems; theyre not London problems, he said. They are problems that are essentially imported into each Olympic host city when the political and economic elites of that city decide to put forth a bid.

They are an Olympics problem, but they are also, fundamentally, an IOC problem. After all, the governing body consists of 102 members, comprising former Olympians, presidents of international sporting federations, and even royalty. It selects its own members, and makes no requirement that every country be represented. Indeed, most arent. Despite claiming supreme authority over the worlds largest sporting festival, it lacks external accountability.

The IOC is completely undemocratic; its completely nontransparent, David Goldblatt, the author of The Games: A Global History of the Olympics, told me. It doesnt appoint critics; it doesnt listen to its critics; it doesnt engage with its critics. And yet, it has a privileged position in the global governance of sport.

Although the IOC is unlikely to heed its critics calls to reform the Olympics, or to cancel them altogether, it has proved its ability to change coursewhen its left with no other choice. The shortage of willing host cities has already prompted the IOC to overhaul its bidding process, swapping its costly bidding wars for an internal (and arguably less transparent) selection process instead. Climate change, and the impact it could have on the viability of future host cities, could also escalate the pressure to alter the way the Olympics are conducted. After Beijing (which is already ill-suited to host a Winter Games, relying entirely on artificial snow), the Olympics will then head to Paris, to Milan and Cortina dAmpezzo in Italy, to Los Angeles, and to Brisbane, all of which are grappling with rising temperatures and extreme weather events including drought, wildfires, and flooding.

But the Olympics might be running out of time for reform. After Tokyo, the varnish [of the Games] has been stripped off, Boykoff said. If you cant do something now, especially with another very controversial Olympic Games coming up, in Beijing, well sheesh, when are you going to be able to do it?

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Is It Time to End the Olympics? - The Atlantic

You can only imagine the joy and jubilation if cheering, flag-waving spectators had filled Yokohama Baseball Stadium rather than empty seats. Instead of chants, we heard the echo of the foul-ball buzzer.

Baseball is like a national religion in Japan, where the annual high school tournament known as Koshien can draw more than 50% of television viewers and the star players earn instant fame. While the Olympic baseball tournament is mostly an afterthought in the United States, where the focus is on the gymnasts, swimmers and track and field stars, fans in Japan expected the home country to win the gold medal. There would be no celebration for silver.

The home team delivered. Staring down that enormous pressure, a team of Japanese All-Stars -- the Central and Pacific leagues paused their schedules to allow the best players to play -- beat a ragtag U.S. roster of baseball lifers and minor leaguers 2-0 in the gold-medal game to win its first Olympic gold medal. Five Japanese pitchers delivered a master class in pitching, holding the U.S. team to six hits. The U.S. had just one extra-base hit and only one runner reached third base.

The biggest hero of the day for Japan was 23-year-old starter Masato Morishita, a rising star for the Hiroshima Carp. The Central League's rookie of the year in 2020, Morishita shut down the U.S. lineup with five scoreless innings, keeping it off balance with a big, old-school, slow curveball, a moving fastball that darted in on the right-handed batters, and a hesitation in his delivery, where he would pause with his front knee frozen in midair. Pressure? Morishita wore a gold-colored glove.

I suspect that glove color will suddenly become very popular with kids across Japan.

Indeed, it was a big day for Japan's youngest stars.

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U.S. starter Nick Martinez, who has pitched in Japan since 2018 after spending four years with the Texas Rangers, locked up with Morishita in a great pitcher's duel. He escaped a one-out, bases-loaded jam in the fourth inning with a force at home and three-pitch strikeout, screaming and pumping his fist after the whiff. He struck out the side in the fifth.

He left after six innings trailing 1-0, however, as 21-year-old Munetaka Murakami hit an opposite-field home run in the third inning that just cleared the fence in left-center. Despite his youth, Murakami is already in his fourth season with the Yakult Swallows. He hit 36 home runs in 2019, .307 with 28 home runs in 2020, and already has 26 in 83 games this season. It was quiet in the stadium, but a roar certainly serenaded across Japan as he rounded the bases. He's a player U.S. scouts will be watching closely.

After Morishita exited, Japan emptied its bullpen. The second reliever was Hiromi Itoh, a 23-year-old rookie for the Nippon Ham Fighters, a starter in the regular season, but getting the seventh inning in this game. On a humid evening in Yokohama, he applied a liberal dosage of rosin to his fingers and with every pitch a puff of dust flew off the ball.

Itoh got one of the biggest outs of the game. With A's prospect Nick Allen on third with two outs, Itoh faced leadoff hitter Eddy Alvarez. The 31-year-old Alvarez, who carried the U.S. flag in the opening ceremonies with basketball star Sue Bird, won a silver medal in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, as part of the U.S. speedskating relay team. When the U.S. beat South Korea to reach the gold-medal game -- guaranteeing Alvarez a medal -- he broke down in tears, overjoyed at becoming the sixth athlete to win medals in both the Winter and Summer Olympics. Alvarez bounced out to first to end the threat.

Indeed, compared to the star-studded Japanese roster or the U.S. basketball men's and women's rosters, the U.S. Olympic baseball roster was mostly players like Alvarez, the Bad News Bears only without Kelly Leak and Amanda Wurlitzer.

Oh, the U.S. team had its own All-Stars -- former All-Stars that is, like Todd Frazier, the 35-year-old veteran who was released earlier this season after hitting .086 for the Pirates. Or Scott Kazmir, the 37-year-old lefty who made his first All-Star Game way back in 2006. After not pitching in the majors since 2016, Kazmir made it back to the big leagues this year, starting two games for the Giants. Edwin Jackson is the ultimate lifer. He played for 14 teams in his major league career, a couple of them more than once. He last pitched in the majors in 2019. It's not easy to give up the sport you've played your entire life.

The tension mounted in the late innings. After Tyler Austin's leadoff single in the eighth, Japan brought in lefty reliever Suguru Iwazaki to face Red Sox prospect Triston Casas. Casas and Allen were the two legitimate position player prospects on the team and he had been the team's best hitter in the tournament. Iwazaki threw him a 3-2 slider, probably off the plate, and Casas tried to check his swing, but couldn't. Frazier popped up, yelling in frustration. It might have been his final at-bat as a professional baseball player. Eric Filia grounded out.

Japan added a run in the bottom of the eighth and then turned to another rookie, Ryoji Kuribayashi, to close it out. Kuribayashi has an 0.53 ERA for the Hiroshima Carp, with 18 saves and 54 strikeouts in 33 innings. Like many of the Japanese pitchers who have come over to the U.S. major leagues, he has a nasty split-fingered pitch. He got a strikeout and fly ball before Allen singled with two outs.

It was up to Jack Lopez, the No. 9 hitter in the U.S. lineup. He has been in the minor leagues since 2012, playing for the Royals, Braves and now Red Sox organizations. Born in Puerto Rico, he has played seven seasons of winter ball there. He has played for Idaho Falls and Wilmington and Northwest Arkansas and Omaha and Gwinnett and Worcester. He has seen America. He has never played a major league game.

Kuribayashi was too good. Lopez grounded out to shortstop, the Japanese players rushed the mound and the coaching staff hugged, history secured. As Eduardo Perez said on the broadcast, this was the gold medal Japan wanted above all others.

Then the Japanese team lined up along the third-base line, turned toward the U.S. dugout and bowed.

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2021 Olympics -- In baseball, Japan got the gold it has wanted forever - ESPN

Olympians are the worlds most impressive athletes. Watching them show off their superhuman strength, endurance and form, its easy to forget that many of them are not just mortals but teens and 20-somethings, effectively living in dorms, their emotions and hormones swiveling and swerving as they vie for the ultimate honors in sports.

When theyre not competing, the athletes at the Olympic Games in Tokyo have been quite candid on social media. Posts from the last two weeks, many of them on TikTok, show this years Olympians flirting, knitting, dancing, answering personal questions and, of course, making sex jokes.

Heres just a sampling of whats been happening in their downtime, as seen on the smallest of screens.

Athletes across the board the Israeli baseball team, an Irish gymnast, American rugby players have posted videos of themselves and teammates attempting to corrupt the cardboard beds in the Olympic Village. Many of these test the bed videos were a humorous response to the rumor that the recycled beds were provided as a way to dissuade athletes from having sex. (That is not the case, according to the company that made them.)

In another jokey take on the Olympic Villages reputation as a hookup zone, Noah Williams, a British diver, posted a TikTok video of himself and his teammate Tom Daley unboxing hundreds of free condoms. (The contraceptives have been provided by the organizers of the Olympics for more than 30 years to encourage sexual health.)

Other Olympians have been using social media to flirt with or at least openly admire their fellow competitors from afar.

Tyler Downs, an Olympic diver, posted a video on TikTok directed at Simone Biles, asking the decorated gymnast to talk 2 me. A Japanese fencer named Kaito Streets took the same approach with Naomi Osaka, the tennis player. Though the videos are flirty, it is unlikely that the young men have more in mind than attracting attention from their sports idols and their fans.

Gus Kenworthy, a commentator, posted a compilation of male athletes some shirtless while Charli XCXs Boys played in the background. The lyrics are anything but subtle: I was busy thinking bout boys/ Boys, boys/ I was busy dreaming bout boys.

Ilona Maher, a member of the U.S. womens rugby team, made no secret of her search for an Olympic bae in Tokyo, posting several videos about spotting Olympic demigods and making prolonged eye contact.

One user asked why the Olympians wont just talk to each other in person. Its not that easy to go up to a pack of six, seven Romanian volleyball players and shoot my shot, Ms. Maher said in one video. Im working on it, but I dont know if thats in the cards for me.

In addition to the sillier posts, many athletes have pulled back the curtain on life in the Olympic Village, sharing footage of the nail salon, the souvenir shop, the self-driving vans, the massage center and the florist.

Kelsey Marie Robinson, a volleyball player for the United States, has been reviewing the food in the villages cafeteria. In one video, she pans over a spread of salmon, steak, peaches, melons, fried calamari, seaweed rice balls, vegetable tempura and a chocolate mousse. The mousse really got her attention (10/10, Ms. Robinson wrote.)

Erica Ogwumike, a basketball player for the Nigerian team and a student in medical school, gave a short overview of the polyclinic, where athletes can receive acupuncture, dermatology treatments, physiotherapy and more.

Various athletes have answered frequently asked questions about their sport, themselves and being in the Olympics. (For volleyball players, how tall are you? is a common one.)

Cody Melphy, an American rugby player, has used his TikTok page to answer more niche questions, like whether athletes are allowed to keep the comforters that come with their cardboard beds (they are) and what happens if an athletes laundry is lost (Mr. Melphy washed his used clothes in a bathtub).

Mr. Daley, a diver and gold medalist who appeared in the condom unboxing video, has also been sharing his progress on knitting projects. On an Instagram page devoted to his knitted and crocheted creations, he said that the hobby has kept him sane.

Some competitors brought their fans into the experience even before reaching Tokyo. Liza Pletneva, a rhythmic gymnast from the United States, documented her teams journey from home, which included a six-hour layover in Amsterdam, an 11-hour flight to Tokyo and five hours of processing upon arrival.

In comments on these videos, TikTok users are expressing their appreciation for how much inside scoop the Olympians have been posting. Noah Schnapp, an actor best known for his role on Stranger Things, published a video on TikTok saying he didnt know Olympic athletes were so funny and normal and that seeing their routines on TikTok has changed the entire experience of spectating.

So the ratings are in. Season 1 of Olympics TikTok is a success.

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The Olympics Are All Fun, No Games on TikTok - The New York Times

TOKYO Kenichiro Fumita was crying so hard that he could barely get the words out.

I wanted to return my gratitude to the concerned people and volunteers who are running the Olympics during this difficult time, Mr. Fumita, a Greco-Roman wrestler, said between sobs after finishing his final bout at the Games this week.

I ended up with this shameful result, he said, bobbing his head abjectly. Im truly sorry.

Mr. Fumita, 25, had just won a silver medal.

In what has become a familiar and, at times, wrenching sight during the Tokyo Olympics, many Japanese athletes have wept through post-competition interviews, apologizing for any result short of gold. Even some who had won a medal, like Mr. Fumita, lamented that they had let down their team, their supporters, even their country.

After Japans judo team earned silver, losing to France, Shoichiro Mukai, 25, also apologized. I wanted to withstand a little bit more, he said. And Im so sorry to everyone on the team.

Apologizing for being second best in the world would seem to reflect an absurdly unforgiving metric of success. But for these athletes competing in their home country, the emotionally charged displays of repentance which often follow pointed questions from the Japanese news media can represent an intricate mix of regret, gratitude, obligation and humility.

If you dont apologize for only getting silver, you might be criticized, said Takuya Yamazaki, a sports lawyer who represents players unions in Japan.

From an early age, Japanese athletes are not really supposed to think like they are playing sports for themselves, Mr. Yamazaki said. Especially in childhood, there are expectations from adults, teachers, parents or other senior people. So its kind of a deeply rooted mind-set.

The expectations placed on the athletes have been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, which made the Olympics deeply unpopular with the Japanese public before the events began. Many may feel more pressure than usual to deliver medals to justify holding the Games, as anxiety swells over rising coronavirus cases in Japan. Athletes who have failed to do so have offered outpourings of regret.

I feel fed up with myself, said Kai Harada, a sport climber, vigorously wiping his eyes during an interview after failing to make the finals. Takeru Kitazono, a gymnast who finished sixth on the horizontal bar, fought back tears as he spoke of his supporters. I wanted to return my gratitude with my performance, he said. But I couldnt.

Naomi Osaka, in a statement after she was eliminated in the third round of womens singles tennis, said she was proud to represent Japan but added, Im sorry that I couldnt respond to peoples expectations.

In some respects, these athletes have offered an extreme form of the apologies that are everyday social lubricants in Japanese culture.

When entering someones home, a visitor literally says sorry. Workers going on vacation apologize for burdening colleagues, while conductors express deep regret if a train is a minute late or even a few seconds early. Generally, these apologies are a matter of convention rather than a declaration of responsibility.

At times, the mea culpas ring hollow. Corporate chieftains and politicians frequently bow deeply to the news cameras to apologize for this corporate scandal or that political misdeed. For the most part, few consequences follow.

Aug. 8, 2021, 12:43 p.m. ET

The former president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, Yoshiro Mori, initially tried to use such an apology to avoid resigning after making sexist remarks. But a vociferous social media campaign helped depose him.

People who study Japanese culture say the athletes apologies, even in the face of victory, stem from an instinct that is cultivated from childhood.

Americans are very good at finding reasons why you are great even if you fail, said Shinobu Kitayama, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan. But in Japan, he said, even if you succeed, you have to apologize.

The apologies are also likely to be recognized as tacit expressions of gratitude, said Joy Hendry, an anthropologist and the author of Understanding Japanese Society. I expect they feel that they need to apologize for not having achieved the very best they could for those who trained or financially supported them, Ms. Hendry said.

Mr. Fumita, the wrestler, may have also felt pressure to please his father, a well-known wrestling coach. In an interview on NHK, the public broadcaster, Mr. Fumita said he was afraid to answer a call after his silver medal win. I could not pick up the phone, he said. I just didnt know what I could say to my father.

The athletes also know that aside from the medal count, the Japanese public cannot enjoy the perks of being an Olympic host, because spectators are barred from the venues.

The absence of fans was palpable on Tuesday night at a near-empty stadium in Saitama, a Tokyo suburb, during the semifinal mens soccer match between Japan and Spain. Close to 64,000 seats were vacant as loudspeakers blasted recorded cheers and applause onto the field.

After Japan lost in the final minutes of extra time, Yuki Soma, 24, a midfielder, paid tribute to those who could not be there. By winning a medal at any cost, I would like to give energy to Japan and make them smile, he said at a postgame news conference, his eyes downcast. The bronze is still in Japans reach as it faces Mexico on Friday.

Of course, its not just Japanese Olympians who express bitter disappointment after missing out on gold. Liao Qiuyun of China wept openly after winning silver in womens weight lifting last week. After the U.S. womens soccer team fell to Canada on Monday night in a semifinal, one member of the team, Carli Lloyd, crouched on the field, clasping her head in her hands.

But in a post-match interview, she made no apology. I was just gutted, Ms. Lloyd said, adding, we give up so much, and you want to win.

When Simone Biles withdrew from both the gymnastics team competition and the individual all-around competition, she explained that she wanted to protect her own mental and physical health.

The urge to apologize may stem in part from the harsh coaching style found in some sports in Japan, said Katrin Jumiko Leitner, an associate professor in sports management and wellness at Rikkyo University in Saitama. When she first came to Japan to train in judo, she said, she was shocked by coaches' aggressive language. I thought, if thats the way to become an Olympic champion, I dont want to be an Olympic champion, she said. They did not treat athletes like human beings.

Some Japanese athletes have been subjected to public criticism for failing to show sufficient humility. Yuko Arimori, a marathon runner who won silver in Barcelona in 1992 and bronze in Atlanta in 1996, was accused of narcissism by some in the Japanese news media after declaring in Atlanta that she was proud of herself.

Ms. Arimori understands why athletes continue to offer apologies, given that they can convey a sense of gratitude.

But I think supporters know the athletes have worked hard enough, Ms. Arimori added. So there is no need to apologize.

Makiko Inoue and Hikari Hida contributed reporting.

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Second Best in the World at the Tokyo Olympics, but Still Saying Sorry - The New York Times

TOKYO Tony Estanguet wants to talk about how the next Olympic Games, in Paris in 2024, will be a paradigm-shifting moment for an event that has come under fire for becoming too bloated, too costly, too onerous for the citizens of the places where the quadrennial sporting jamboree lands.

Estanguet wants to talk about sustainability plans, how 95 percent of the venues are already built and how measures are in place to ensure the budget of 7.5 billion euros ($8.8 billion) for the Games will not balloon when the event nears, as Olympic budgets have a tendency to do.

But all of that has to wait. The first task for Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 Olympic organizing committee, is to figure out how to plan an event for which preparations are likely to be affected by a pandemic now well into its second year. Estanguet brought dozens of staff members to Japan to shadow organizers of the Tokyo Games perhaps the most complicated, strangest Olympics in history and to learn how to take a layered plan years in the making and rewrite it on the fly.

Nobody knows what will happen with this pandemic, said Estanguet, a three-time Olympic champion in canoe slalom, so we have to be ready for any kind of scenario.

At the Tokyo Games, he and his colleagues have visited stadiums and arenas where some of the worlds finest athletes have performed without spectators. He has met with some officials to discuss the finer points of biosecurity, and then sat down with others to learn about the successes and failures of bubble environments.

The learnings of here is that its feasible to organize the Games even with this kind of situation, Estanguet said. So we are here to learn.

Estanguet said the Paris officials would remain in Tokyo for further talks after the Games end on Sunday, and then do the same sort of shadowing program with organizers of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, where restrictions on movement and health protocols are likely to be even more stringent than they have been in Tokyo.

Yet Estanguet remains hopeful that the coronavirus pandemic will be something for the history books by the time the Summer Games arrive in France.

We will look at all the measures they put in place here, but we are still working on our Plan A, he said. I want my team first to be at the best level with Plan A.

That plan is firmly underway. A sponsorship target of one billion euros has just passed the halfway mark, and the keen interest of both Frances president, Emmanuel Macron, and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has already helped clear administrative hurdles.

Macron, known to be a sports fan, was a visible presence for the first part of the Tokyo Games, hopping from venue to venue. Hidalgo will be Pariss representative at the closing ceremony.

We rely on our ability to have all of them really engaged, Estanguet said.

Estanguet pointed out that the government had adopted a strategy built around the Olympics that for the first time requires every primary school in France to set aside 30 minutes a day for physical activity. That, Estanguet said, was an example of the benefits of the Games, already in place three years before the opening ceremony.

Such legacies have been promised by hosts before, of course, only to fizzle out not long after the Olympic flame goes dark. Instead, the Games have often been followed by recriminations over costs and stories of expensive venues fallen into disuse. Estanguet refused to predict whether Paris would meet its own set of lofty promises, but said the conditions were in place to do so.

I can tell you that we have control of our budget every year from the public authorities, and so far we are still running with the same budget, he said. So I will not guarantee you, but everything is put in place for this new model.

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For the Next Summer Olympics, Paris 2024 Presses On With Plan A, but Studies Tokyo's Plan B - The New York Times

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Mechelle VoepelESPN.com

As the first basketball players to win five Olympic gold medals -- leading the U.S. women to a seventh consecutive gold in the process on a historic final day at the Tokyo Games -- Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi also solidified the title given to them by the coach who brought the duo together two decades ago.

"They are two of the greatest teammates in the history of sports," UConn's Geno Auriemma said. "Even if you only used UConn, or only the Olympics, or only Europe. Throw in all three, and no one even comes close.

"If this is indeed their last Olympics together, winning a gold medal just got a lot harder [for U.S. women's basketball]."

"If" might seem an unnecessary qualifier considering Bird turns 41 in October and Taurasi is 39. While Bird has said this will be her last Olympics, the backcourt duo has been at the top of the sport for so long, it's hard to imagine Team USA without them.

"We always say we're lucky we get to do this together," Taurasi said. "There's this confidence and this trust factor you have."

Perhaps they will have one last go-round next year at the FIBA Women's World Cup. It's the kind of thing Bird and Taurasi would consider, because they've taken their national team commitment as a solemn oath, as dear to them as anything in their epic careers. They played together two seasons at UConn and several years overseas in Russia. But their most iconic pairing has been wearing the red, white and blue of the senior national team through five Olympics and four World Cups.

Including Saturday's 90-75 win over Japan, Bird has 10 medals between the Olympics and World Cup, more than any men's or women's basketball player. All are gold except the 2006 World Cup bronze. Taurasi is one medal behind her. Bird's first came in the 2002 World Cup when she was a Seattle Storm rookie, and Taurasi was a UConn junior.

"They've done so much for USA Basketball that the rest of us players are just continuing to try and return the favor and make sure that they realize how much we appreciate them," said U.S. forward Breanna Stewart, who is also Bird's teammate with the Storm.

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A huge amount of talent -- including four-time Olympic gold medalists Lisa Leslie, Teresa Edwards (she also won an Olympic bronze) and current team member Sylvia Fowles -- paved the way and helped the United States win nine of the 11 Olympic women's tournaments they've entered, and their run of winning seven in a row matches the longest gold-medal streak any country has had in any Olympic team sport. But no players have contributed more to the U.S. gold haul than Bird and Taurasi: 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020.

"They're a big part of the glue to the whole system," Leslie said. "Once, they were the babies coming in. They were open to listening, respectful to the older players. That's the culture.

"I believe they've carried the torch beautifully."

There are many famous pro sports duos: Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier. Misty May-Treanor and Kerry Walsh Jennings. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

But Bird and Taurasi, who will one day both be in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, are different. What are the odds of two players from opposite coasts, born 20 months apart, ending up at the same college, then going on to be both good enough and healthy enough to stay at the top of their sport through five Olympic cycles? Both also complement each other so well: Taurasi is the WNBA's all-time scoring leader who is also an expert passer, while Bird is the league's career assist leader also known for her dagger-like shooting.

It has been a fantastic confluence of athletic talent, ambition, personality and commitment. One of the closest comparisons in basketball is Bill Russell and KC Jones, who led the University of San Francisco to two NCAA titles, won gold at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics with the United States and then won eight NBA titles together with the Boston Celtics.

There's also Edwards and Katrina McClain, Georgia teammates who reached the 1985 NCAA championship game and then played in three Olympics together.

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Bird and Taurasi came together at UConn in the fall of 2000: Bird a junior from Long Island who had won a national championship with the Huskies earlier that year and Taurasi the highly anticipated recruit from California. They lost in the 2001 Final Four, but nothing could stop them the next season. They defeated Tennessee so thoroughly in the 2002 national semifinals that Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt went to the UConn locker room to tell them they were one of the best teams she had ever seen.

Bird was the No. 1 pick in the 2002 WNBA draft and the understudy at point guard to current U.S. coach Dawn Staley in the FIBA World Cup later that year. Taurasi won two more NCAA titles and was a No. 1 draft pick herself, by Phoenix, and then joined Bird and Staley on the 2004 Olympic team. Their only loss in a major competition with USA Basketball came to Russia in the 2006 World Cup semifinals.

Each has been the longtime face of her WNBA franchise. Bird, in her 18th WNBA season in Seattle, has won four WNBA titles, while Taurasi, in her 17th season in Phoenix, has three. Bird missed two seasons dealing with knee injuries; Taurasi sat out one to rest after years of non-stop play between the WNBA and overseas.

The overseas part of their careers was far from the limelight in frigid Russian winters. They lamented missed milestones with family and friends back home, but it paid so well they committed to doing it. They played on three different Russian teams together and won five EuroLeague championships.

Bird said the few quarrels they've had didn't come when they were playing at UConn or with USA Basketball.

"It was when we were in Russia," she said. "At some point, you get sick of people, or an argument comes up that goes a little too far. Maybe a little too much wine. You take your space and then you wake up the next day and play. But we've had to apologize to each other before."

Taurasi said she could count on one hand the times they truly have been mad at each other.

"And it's probably over the dumbest s--- ever," she said. "We're able to have different opinions but always come to an understanding of working through things. We take that attitude and put it into all the teams we've been on."

Auriemma coached Bird and Taurasi in two Olympics and two World Cups, and said he is particularly proud of their longevity and the mental toughness it takes to keep pushing yourself year after year.

Staley loves their maturity and dependability: "They've played everywhere. They've been through everything. There is nothing they haven't seen.

"They want to play perfectly. They still want to be coached, and that's an incredible thing at this level, when their intellect is off the charts."

Bird said wearing the Team USA jersey still matters just as much to her, no matter how big her medal collection. At 15, she went with AAU teammates to see the national team playing an exhibition in 1995 while preparing for the Atlanta Olympics. Watching U.S. point guard Jennifer Azzi, in particular, inspired Bird, who called it her first "see it, be it" moment.

"I was like, 'Here's this player who is kind of the same size as me, same build, and she's able to do this,'" Bird said. "And remember, there was no WNBA yet. So for us, in that generation, you were really looking to the Olympics as the ultimate goal."

Bird couldn't have known that 26 years later, she would be celebrating a fifth Olympic gold medal with one of her best friends. Both Bird and Taurasi have been "see it, be it" inspirations for countless kids.

Taurasi jokes that she deals with the weight of history, of her place in the game and all that she and Bird have shared by "Not doing a lot of thinking. I'm very narrow-focused on the things I've got to get done."

What they've gotten done has been remarkable.

So much has changed in the world and in women's basketball over the last two decades. But the bond between Bird and Taurasi has been unchanging, bringing a sense of confidence and purpose to the national team that all who have played with them have appreciated.

"There's certain people in life you just get along with really well, and you have so many shared experiences that you can relate a little more," Taurasi said of her friendship with Bird. "That's what the last 20 years have been like."

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Olympics 2021 - Five-time Olympic gold medalists Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi are 'greatest teammates in history of sports' - ESPN

Youth was on display as 13-year-old Rayssa Leal of Brazil won silver in womens street skateboarding. Momiji Nishiya of Japan won gold and shes also 13.

The U.S. softball team celebrated a walkoff home run by Kelsey Stewart to beat Japan. The teams will play again on Tuesday for a gold medal.

Ariarne Titmus of Australia, in Lane 3, outswam Katie Ledecky, in Lane 4, in the 400-meter freestyle. Ledecky led for much of the race but Titmus finished stronger.

Germany attacked Argentinas goal in the handball preliminary round, winning 33-25.

Naomi Osaka needed just 65 minutes to get past Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland, 6-3, 6-2. The womens singles field opened up widely for her as two other top players lost.

Fiji, the reigning Olympic champions, beat Canada in rugby qualifying.

The United States and China had a surprisingly close first half in womens water polo. The Americans prevailed and remain the dominant team in the sport.

The sun was setting as the Netherlands played Belgium in three-on-three basketball.

Nikita Nagornyy of Russia helped his country get past Japan and China in the mens gymnastics team final.

David Tshama Mwenekabwe of the Democratic Republic of Congo fought in the mens middleweight class round of 32.

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Tokyo Olympics on Thursday: No Easy Wins - The New York Times

This is the pressure, inside your head all the time, he added.

Bindra, the Beijing 2008 gold medalist, said that his success was rooted not in state support but in family wealth. His father built a world-class shooting range in their home in the northern city of Chandigarh. Then he topped it up with a swimming pool and a gym so that his son could build his muscle. At the time, the only comparable shooting range was in New Delhi.

Viren Rasquinha, a former captain of the Indian hockey team, is now the chief executive of Olympic Gold Quest, a nonprofit group founded by former top-flight athletes to promote the next generation of talent.

While Rasquinha said that the national sports authority has shed some of its lumbering, graft-ridden reputation, creating an ecosystem of coaches, training facilities, infrastructure and equipment takes time.

In recent years, the countrys most powerful crop of Olympians has come from a narrow neck of land in northeastern India, where ethnic minorities live in the shadow of the Himalayas. These states, Manipur and Assam, are home to insurgent movements fighting for autonomy from the Indian state. Because of their ethnicity, people there often face discrimination.

Rural youth have the passion and fire in the belly, which is missing among the students in the cities, said Rasquinha, whose group has funded some of these athletes.

Mary Kom, a light-flyweight boxer from Manipur who captured bronze at the 2012 Games in London, said she has long faced prejudice from Hindu nationalists who say that as a Christian, she is somehow not truly Indian. There are also racist whispers, some not so quiet, that people from the Himalayan foothills are more martial than others in India and thats why they make good boxers.

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Why India Struggles to Win Gold Medals in the Olympics - The New York Times

TOKYO -- The International Olympic Committee has given itself more power to remove sports from the Olympic program.

The decision voted in by IOC members comes during prolonged issues with the leadership of weightlifting and boxing.

The IOC can now remove a sport if its governing body does not comply with a decision made by the Olympic body's executive board or if it "acts in a manner likely to tarnish the reputation of the Olympic movement."

Weightlifting could lose its place at the 2024 Paris Olympics because of long-term doping problems and governance issues. The International Weightlifting Federation was led for two decades until last year by longtime IOC member Tamas Ajan.

Boxing at the Tokyo Games was taken out of the International Boxing Association's control in 2019 after doubts about the integrity of Olympic bouts and IOC concerns about its presidential elections.

Original post:

IOC votes to give itself more power to remove sports from Olympics - ESPN

The key events for tomorrow, via our daily briefing.

All events are listed here in local Tokyo time. Add an hour for Sydney, subtract eight hours for Bristol, 13 hours for New York and 16 hours for San Francisco.

Athletics (7.35pm-9.50pm) Theres only one session in the stadium on Saturday and it is final after final. We get the womens high jump and the mens javelin. The womens 10,000m final is at 7.45pm. The mens 1500m final is 8.40pm. Then we finish the track events in the stadium with the explosive double whammy of the womens and mens 4x400m relay finals.

Womens marathon (6am) Held in Sapporo to try and avoid the Tokyo heat, the women will start at around 10pm UK time so you can settle in with your Ovaltine for a late night watching someone else run 26.2 miles to gold.

Golf (6.30am) It should be the fourth and final round of the womens golf weather permitting.

Canoe sprint (9.30am-12.47pm)There are four finals on Saturday, in the womens canoe double 500m, mens canoe single 1000m, and the kayak four 500m in both flavours.

Beach volleyball (10am-12.20pm)The mens bronze match features pairs from Latvia and Qatar, followed by Norway and Not Russia serving for gold.

Diving (10am and 3pm)The mens 10m platform semi-final and then the final.

Rhythmic gymnastics (10am, 11.30am and 3.20pm)The morning sessions are qualifications for the group all-around. The afternoon is the individual all-around final.

Basketball (11.30am, 4pm and 8pm)The programme is all topsy-turvy possibly for the benefit of US TV audiences but the morning starts with the mens gold medal game between the USA and France. At 4pm, its the womens bronze final (France v Serbia) with the mens bronze medal match between Australia and Slovenia at 8pm.

Baseball (12pm and 7pm ) First the bronze medal match between the Dominican Republic and South Korea, and then the final in the evening between Japan and the USA.

Boxing (2pm-3.15pm)Four final bouts today in mens fly, womens fly, mens middle and womens welter weights. Britains Galal Yafai faces Cubas Carlo Paalam at 2pm.

Karate (2pm-8.45pm)Featuring the mens Kumite +75kg and womens Kumite +61kg. The bronze medal bouts and the finals get going around 7.20pm.

Modern pentathlon (2.30pm-7.30pm) The mens competition features swimming, fencing, show jumping and then the combined cross-country run interrupted by having to shoot at things. It is so great to watch.

Track cycling (3.30pm-6.25pm) Races all day, but one final to look out for: the mens madison final at 4.55pm.

Handball (5pm and 9pm)It is Egypt v Spain for bronze first, then France v Denmark for the gold in the mens competition.

Equestrian (7pm)Its the final day with the horses today, and it is the jumping team final.

Artistic swimming (7.30pm)The team free routine final lights up Saturday on the final day of events.

Football (8.30pm)Its the mens final in Yokohama, featuring Brazil v Spain.

Link:

Tokyo Olympics: golds for Kenny and Archibald, silver for Muir and more as it happened - The Guardian