Olympic champions, hopefuls react to Tokyo Games move to 2021

By OlympicTalkMar 24, 2020, 2:20 PM EDT

Athlete reactions on social media and elsewhere to the announcement that the Tokyo Olympics will be moved to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic …

“As we stand together to meet today’s challenges, we can dream about a wonderful Olympics in a beautiful country,” was tweeted from U.S. Olympic champion swimmer Katie Ledecky‘s account. “Now is the time to support all those working to heal the sick and keep us all healthy.”

Noah Lyles, the world champion in the 200m, said he was relieved “because my first concern is that everybody would be healthy and everybody would have a fair place to compete.” Training in Central Florida has been curtailed to grassy, trail-like areas around woods where people are walking dogs.

“We can’t really sprint,” said Lyles, who is spending more time playing video games and working on an EP he has planned to release in the next few months. “Not a lot we can do, just kind of a little bit of running on the grass. Some plyometrics. Just an hour or two, and then you go back and quarantine. It’s just a little bit of something to not go crazy.”

Pita Taufatofua, the Tongan flag bearer sensation from Rio and PyeongChang, had already qualified for the Tokyo Games in taekwondo. He will continue to try to qualify in a second sport of kayak.

“Either way this is the right decision and now athletes can focus on looking after themselves and their families,” he posted. “Personally I will keep pushing on my kayak just Incase [sic] there is that chance that a miracle will happen and I get to represent Tonga on the Taekwondo mats and in the Kayak in Tokyo. I will use the extra year to be the best athlete and person that I can be.”

Des Linden, a two-time Olympian, was fourth at the Feb. 29 Olympic Marathon Trials, just missing the team of three women. Any changes to any Olympic qualifying procedures have not been announced, but she was adamant that the U.S. marathon team not change.

“Anybody suggesting the Marathon Trials be re-run, just stop,” she tweeted. “There are 6 athletes who actually have so much to celebrate during this tough time, please don’t crap on their parade.”

France’s Kevin Mayer is the world-record holder in the decathlon. The Olympic decathlon champion is commonly labeled the world’s greatest athlete.

“No problem,” Mayer tweeted, “we can wait.”

Great Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson is the reigning world champion in the heptathlon, which crowns the world’s best female athlete.

“Waited 8 years for this, what’s another 1 in the grand scheme of things?” she tweeted. “As an athlete, it’s heartbreaking news about the olympics being postponed until 2021, but it’s for all the right reasons and the safety of everyone!”

Lilly King, the finger-wagging Rio Olympic breaststroke champion, posted, “Just one more year to get better.”

Eliud Kipchoge, the world-record holder in the iconic Olympic event of the marathon, called it “a very wise decision” to postpone.

“I look forward to come back to Japan to defend my Olympic title next year and look forward to witness a wonderful event,” Kipchoge posted. “I wish everybody good health in these challenging times.”

Carli Lloyd, a two-time Olympic champion soccer player and World Cup star for the U.S., was already, before the postponement, bidding to become the oldest U.S. Olympic soccer player in history at age 38.

“This is bigger than sports. It’s bigger than an Olympics,” she said in a video interview with an ABC affiliate. “I think it was definitely the right call. Disappointed … but I think for the safety of everybody, it’s definitely the best thing”

Powerful Frenchman Teddy Riner, who won 154 straight judo matches from 2010 until February, summed it up.

“See you in 2021, Tokyo,” he posted. “First, we have to win a huge fight.”

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U.S. women’s rugby team qualifies for 2024 Paris Olympics as medal contender

By OlympicTalkMar 31, 2023, 1:31 PM EDT

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The U.S. women’s rugby team qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics by clinching a top-four finish in this season’s World Series.

Since rugby was re-added to the Olympics in 2016, the U.S. men’s and women’s teams finished fifth, sixth, sixth and ninth at the Games.

The U.S. women are having their best season since 2018-19, finishing second or third in all five World Series stops so far and ranking behind only New Zealand and Australia, the winners of the first two Olympic women’s rugby sevens tournaments.

The U.S. also finished fourth at last September’s World Cup.

Three months after the Tokyo Games, Emilie Bydwell was announced as the new U.S. head coach, succeeding Olympic coach Chris Brown.

Soon after, Tokyo Olympic co-captain Abby Gustaitis was cut from the team.

Jaz Gray, who led the team in scoring last season and at the World Cup, missed the last three World Series stops after an injury.

The U.S. men are ranked ninth in this season’s World Series and will likely need to win either a North American Olympic qualifier this summer or a last-chance global qualifier in June 2024 to make it to Paris.

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Oscar Pistorius denied parole, hasn’t served enough time

Associated PressMar 31, 2023, 1:05 PM EDT

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Olympic and Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius was denied parole Friday and will have to stay in prison for at least another year and four months after it was decided that he had not served the “minimum detention period” required to be released following his murder conviction for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp 10 years ago.

The parole board ruled that Pistorius would only be able to apply again in August 2024, South Africa’s Department of Corrections said in a short, two-paragraph statement. It was released soon after a parole hearing at the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre prison where Pistorius is being held.

The board cited a new clarification on Pistorius’ sentence that was issued by South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal just three days before the hearing, according to the statement. Still, legal experts criticized authorities’ decision to go ahead with the hearing when Pistorius was not eligible.

Reeva Steenkamp’s parents, Barry and June, are “relieved” with the decision to keep Pistorius in prison but are not celebrating it, their lawyer told The Associated Press.

“They can’t celebrate because there are no winners in this situation. They lost a daughter and South Africa lost a hero,” lawyer Tania Koen said, referring to the dramatic fall from grace of Pistorius, once a world-famous and highly-admired athlete.

The decision and reasoning to deny parole was a surprise but there has been legal wrangling over when Pistorius should be eligible for parole because of the series of appeals in his case. He was initially convicted of culpable homicide, a charge comparable to manslaughter, in 2014 but the case went through a number of appeals before Pistorius was finally sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison for murder in 2017.

Serious offenders must serve at least half their sentence to be eligible for parole in South Africa. Pistorius’ lawyers had previously gone to court to argue that he was eligible because he had served the required portion if they also counted periods served in jail from late 2014 following his culpable homicide conviction.

The lawyer handling Pistorius’ parole application did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

June Steenkamp attended Pistorius’ hearing inside the prison complex to oppose his parole. The parents have said they still do not believe Pistorius’ account of their daughter’s killing and wanted him to stay in jail.

Pistorius, who is now 36, has always claimed he killed Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law student, in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine’s Day 2013 after mistaking her for a dangerous intruder in his home. He shot four times with his licensed 9 mm pistol through a closed toilet cubicle door in his bathroom, where Steenkamp was, hitting her multiple times. Pistorius claimed he didn’t realize his girlfriend had got out of bed and gone to the bathroom.

The Steenkamps say they still think he is lying and killed her intentionally after a late-night argument.

Lawyer Koen had struck a more critical tone when addressing reporters outside the prison before the hearing, saying the Steenkamps believed Pistorius could not be considered to be rehabilitated “unless he comes clean” over the killing.

“He’s the killer of their daughter. For them, it’s a life sentence,” Koen said before the hearing.

June Steenkamp had sat grim-faced in the back seat of a car nearby while Koen spoke to reporters outside the prison gates ahead of the hearing. June Steenkamp and Koen were then driven into the prison in a Department of Corrections vehicle. June Steenkamp made her submission to the parole board in a separate room to Pistorius and did not come face-to-face with her daughter’s killer, Koen said.

Barry Steenkamp did not travel for the hearing because of poor health but a family friend read out a statement to the parole board on his behalf, the parents’ lawyer said.

Pistorius was once hailed as an inspirational figure for overcoming the adversity of his disability, before his murder trial and sensational downfall captivated the world.

Pistorius’s lower legs were amputated when he was a baby because of a congenital condition and he walks with prosthetics. He went on to become a double-amputee runner and multiple Paralympic champion who made history by competing against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics, running on specially designed carbon-fiber blades.

Pistorius’ conviction eventually led to him being sent to the Kgosi Mampuru II maximum security prison, one of South Africa’s most notorious. He was moved to the Atteridgeville prison in 2016 because that facility is better suited to disabled prisoners.

There have only been glimpses of his life in prison, with reports claiming he had at one point grown a beard, gained weight and taken up smoking and was unrecognizable from the elite athlete he once was.

He has spent much of his time working in an area of the prison grounds where vegetables are grown, sometimes driving a tractor, and has reportedly been running bible classes for other inmates.

Pistorius’ father, Henke Pistorius, told the Pretoria News newspaper before the hearing that his family hoped he would be home soon.

“Deep down, we believe he will be home soon,” Henke Pistorius said, “but until the parole board has spoken the word, I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

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