New top story from Time: With Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka Off TV Screens, Who Will Be the New Olympic Stars?

https://ift.tt/3BNLClE

If something like this—the stunning premature absence of two global icons from the Olympics—was ever going to happen, really, it would happen here, in Tokyo, in these troubled 2020 Olympic Games.

Assuming the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t going to completely overrun the whole affair once it began—and caution, we’re not in the clear yet— these Olympics were supposed to belong to Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka, full stop. Or Naomi and Simone—with the single-name status, in whichever order you prefer.

Gymnastics is a quadrennial television obsession, and Biles delivered like no one has before or since. She had nothing else to prove, but was back for another Olympic run to thrill an adoring audience once more. She was the surest of bets.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Biles pulled out of the team competition on Tuesday and will skip Thursday’s all-around individual competition. In a statement, USA Gymnastics said Biles had withdrawn “in order to focus on her mental health.” She could still take part this weekend’s individual event finals; USA Gymnastics said she will “continue to be evaluated daily.”

So Biles might not be gone from the Tokyo Olympics for good. But the gymnastics team and individual all-around events are the key TV draws for U.S. audiences during the first week of the Games. With Biles’ exit from the marquee events, the Olympics took a stunning turn.

And they were already reeling from Osaka’s shocking third-round loss on Tuesday to no. 42-ranked Marketa Vondrousova, of the Czech Republic, in straight sets. Normally, the Olympic tennis tournament feels like a bit of an add-on; the world’s best already gather four times a year to compete in Grand Slams. Do we really need to do it again?

But Osaka, a four-time Slam champ, was the face of the Tokyo Olympics for the home country, and she has a passionate following in the U.S. She lit the Olympic cauldron during the Opening Ceremony. And her mere presence carried even more importance after she withdrew from the French Open and skipped Wimbledon to tend to her mental health and prepare for the Games. She made a statement, heard loud around the world, on the pressing need for self-care. With that backdrop, millions were pulling for her.

“I definitely feel like there was a lot of pressure for this,” Osaka said after her exit. “I think it’s maybe because I haven’t played in the Olympics before and for the first year (it) was a bit much.”

Make no mistake; combined, Osaka and Biles have propelled mental health to the forefront of sports, and society, like no one else before them. In the long run, this will prove more valuable than any gold medal.

But that doesn’t mean fans can’t feel disappointed. If the Olympics weren’t going to mark a global victory over COVID-19, as imaged by organizers when they postponed them last March, they could at least serve as a welcome distraction from a persistent pandemic. Simone and Naomi were the key distractions.

Outside the U.S., there’s plenty to cheer. Japan, for example, has established itself as a skateboarding powerhouse and stands near the top of the medal count. China is succeeding in its quest for gold and continues to dominate sports like synchronized diving.

But who fills the superstar void for the American audience? Katie Ledecky proved human, finishing fifth in the 200-m freestyle and second in the 400-m freestyle, before winning 1,500-meter freestyle gold on Wednesday. She’s still an all-time great; maybe just not in Tokyo.

The U.S. men’s basketball team lost to France in its opening game; despite rebounding for an expectant win over Iran, Kevin Durant and Co. are vulnerable. The U.S. women’s soccer team, still trying to win a World Cup and Olympic gold back-to-back, has so far been uninspiring, going 1-1-1 in pool play.

Novak Djokovic is here, but at this point he’s practically winning machine; while his talent deserves the upmost respect, the Olympics aren’t banking on him.

Track and field starts Friday; it would have been nice to have Sha’carri Richardson in town. Noah Lyles has swagger, Sydney McLaughlin set a world record at the Olympic Trials, offering hope that she can repeat that feat. Travyon Bromell could be crowned the world’s fastest man. Allyson Felix is writing her final chapter, and chasing the all-time medals mark for a female track and field Olympian.

They all may shine. But these weren’t their Olympics. We can only wish Osaka and Biles well. And can’t help but wonder what might have been, during an Olympics we can never get back.

Comments

New top story from Time: U.S. Donates 500,000 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses to Moldova

https://ift.tt/3xs4Uud BUCHAREST — Moldova is set to receive half a million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine from the United States to help the small nation combat the coronavirus pandemic. The first 150,000 doses of J&J are to arrive in Moldova — a country of 3.5 million, Europe’s poorest sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine — on July 12, the U.S. Embassy officials in Moldova said.. Moldovan President Maia Sandu thanked the U.S. for the vaccines and said that they will “help save lives, preserve the health of our citizens and reduce the force of the pandemic.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “Now, we must mobilize ourselves and, in solidarity, get vaccinated,” Sandu, a former World Bank official, wrote online. The announcement came days ahead of an early) parliamentary election in Moldova that pits pro-Western reformists against a Russia-friendly bloc of Socialists and Communists, with recent polls giving a lead to the former. “This donation could not come...

New top story from Time: 70 Years Ago, the World Made a Pact to Protect Refugees. Too Many of Our Leaders Are Failing to Uphold That Promise

https://ift.tt/3BDBSKB How the world treats refugees is a litmus test of our common humanity. I say that as a refugee myself, having experienced the trauma and wrenching displacement of fleeing my home during the Korean War, when I was a child. The human suffering that I witnessed as I fled my burning village with my parents has stayed with me throughout my life. It’s something that our leaders acknowledged 70 years ago this month, when the 1951 UN Refugee Convention was signed — a landmark treaty that has formed the backbone of international protection for people fleeing persecution in their own country, and should remain the lodestar guiding all national and international policies. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The treaty is just as essential today as it was seven decades ago. The UNHCR’s latest Global Trends report found that a record 82 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes in 2020, including 26 million refugees who have fled their own country. Th...

24x7 RTGS for high-value transactions from December 14. Check details https://ift.tt/37TLyCy

The Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) for high-value transactions will be available 24x7 on all days from December 14. This would make India one of the few countries to operate the system round-the-clock. "RTGS 24x7x365 will be launched with effect from 00:30 hours on December 14, 2020," the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in a statement. In October, the central bank had announced that RTGS will be available 24x7 on all days of the year. The RBI said India will become one of the few countries in the world to operate its RTGS system round-the-clock throughout the year.

New top story from Time: Activision Blizzard Staff Sign Petition Supporting Labor Lawsuit

https://ift.tt/3f1kXIb Nearly 1,000 current and former Activision Blizzard Inc. employees have signed a letter calling the company’s responses to a recent discrimination lawsuit “abhorrent and insulting.” The new letter, which was reviewed by Bloomberg, was circulated Monday following a turbulent week for the publisher behind games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Last week, the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment filed an explosive lawsuit against Activision Blizzard that alleged sexual discrimination, harassment and retaliation. In response, an Activision Blizzard spokesman called the allegations false and distorted. A subsequent email from Activision executive Frances Townsend described the suit’s claims as “factually incorrect, old and out of context.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But dozens of current and former employees, particularly at the Irvine, California-based subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment, have come out on social media in supp...

New top story from Time: Caeleb Dressel Just Won His First Individual Gold in Tokyo

https://ift.tt/3f9zm5b Leading from the start, Caeleb Dressel of Team USA earned his first individual medal, a gold, in the 100-m freestyle at the Tokyo Aquatics Center on Thursday. Dressel was second off the blocks with a reaction time of 0.60, just behind South Korea’s Hwang Sunwoo. From there, he never gave up the lead, holding off Kyle Chalmers of Australia, who earned silver, and Kliment Kolesnikov of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) who touched the wall third. Dressel’s time of 47.02 seconds set a new Olympic record. Dressel’s gold was the second of the session for the U.S., after Robert Finke touched the wall first in the 800-m freestyle. Regan Smith and Hali Flickinger also swam for silver and bronze, respectively, in the 200-m butterfly, capping off the most successful day at the pool for Team USA swim team in Tokyo so far. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Dressel is a proud Florida native; the unmissable sleeve of tattoos that cover his left arm is a homage t...

FOX NEWS: Couple married for 73 years die hours apart: 'God was up to something' Wanda and James “Jim” Wold passed away last Tuesday within hours of each other.

Couple married for 73 years die hours apart: 'God was up to something' Wanda and James “Jim” Wold passed away last Tuesday within hours of each other. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/2UTUNQG

New top story from Time: Will Foxconn Billionaire Terry Gou’s COVID-19 Vaccine Deal Bring Taiwan Closer to China?

https://ift.tt/3x6CLrJ For 18 months, Taiwan was a model of COVID-19 prevention and President Tsai Ing-wen reaped the political benefits. Her approval rating surged to a record 73% in May 2020. Then, a year later, the island’s first major outbreak hit and it became clear that its COVID-19 defense was lacking one major component: vaccines. As infections surged this May, Taiwan had just over 300,000 COVID-19 vaccines for its 23.5 million people. The government had ordered 20 million doses from overseas, but supplies were just trickling in. Tsai, who has forged a close relationship with the U.S. and favors a more distant approach to China, blamed the shortage on interference from Beijing after a deal to buy vaccines directly from Germany manufacturer BioNTech fell apart in January. But finger-pointing didn’t stop her popularity from plunging as many Taiwanese people agonized over the lack of jabs. A poll in June showed her approval rating had dropped to just 43%. [time...

New top story from Time: How Liberal White America Turned Its Back on James Baldwin in the 1960s

https://ift.tt/2QBsNzv In discussions about race relations today, the works of James Baldwin continue to speak to the present, even decades after they were written. So it is worth remembering that, at the very height of his influence, Baldwin experienced the same frustration that some Black activists, particularly on campus, feel about white liberals today: their refusal to acknowledge their complicity in the regime of white supremacy. In Baldwin’s case, the liberal backlash was widespread, and effectively marginalized him for a time. The very first piece on the front page of the very first issue of The New York Review of Books , Feb. 1, 1963, was a review of Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time by F. W. Dupee of the Columbia English department. Dupee (a former Communist Party organizer) took exception to Baldwin’s apocalyptic tone. “Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?” Baldwin had written. The answer, Dupee wrote, is that “[s]ince you have no other, yes; and t...

New top story from Time: Larry Nassar Is in Prison, But Many Young Athletes Are Still at Risk. Here’s How We Can Better Protect Them From Sexual Abuse

https://ift.tt/3kU3o0y Earlier this month, the Department of Justice released a report about the FBI’s investigation into former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar that spotlighted what survivors like me have known to be true: the entire system is failing athletes. The FBI failed to conduct a thorough and timely investigation, and at least 70 victims were sexually abused after allegations had already been reported. The report was as outrageous as it was heartbreaking. The DOJ report found that the FBI failed to respond to the accusations against Nassar in an ethical and efficient way, proving that the FBI—a government institution that should protect its citizens—failed at protecting child athletes. It is unacceptable that multiple institutions, including the FBI, have failed to this extent and not prioritized the well-being of young athletes. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Read more: Aly Raisman Opens Up About Sexual Abuse by USA Gymnastics Doctor Larry Nassar A fail...

Pfizer seeks emergency use authorisation for its COVID-19 vaccine in India https://ift.tt/36IwecF

After securing a clearance by its parent company in the United Kingdom and Bahrain, Pfizer India has become the first pharmaceutical firm to seek from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) an emergency use authorisation for its COVID-19 vaccine in India. The firm, in its application submitted to the drug regulator, has sought permission to import the vaccine for sale and distribution in the country, besides waiver of clinical trials on Indian population in accordance with the special provisions under the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019, official sources said.

My precise view

Search This Blog