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Ethiopian takes a thrilling gold in the 10,000 metres, but there are no crowds to cheer a victory lap At 8.14pm Tokyo time, as the public address burbled weirdly and a crew of Lycra-wrapped athletes, male and female, collapsed together in a narrow corner of the Tokyo Olympic stadium, Marvin Schlegel, a 23-year-old German runner, leapt up on to a concrete walkway above the running track and began to roar into the empty space. Fists clenched, neck muscles fanned, Schlegel continued to roar, a kind of wild-man victory bark. Ten minutes earlier he had run the anchor leg in Germany’s mixed 4x400 relay team. His quartet, two women and two men, had just qualified for Saturday’s Olympic final by the finest of margins. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3BY6iHO

Murphy says 200m backstroke final ‘probably not clean’ Russian winner Rylov says: ‘Ryan didn’t accuse me of anything’ A storm broke out at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Friday morning when Ryan Murphy, the USA’s silver medallist in the 200m backstroke, spoke out against the sport’s doping problem and said he was “swimming in a race that’s probably not clean”. Almost any other time, this would have been an admirably honest thing to do, but the problem was Murphy had only just lost to Evgeny Rylov, representing the Russian Olympic Committee, and the comments came across as an accusation. Rylov, 24, won both the 100m and 200m backstroke this week, the 200m with an Olympic record time of 1min 53.27sec. “I’ve got about 15 thoughts, and 13 of them would get me into a lot of trouble,” Murphy said after the race. “It is a huge mental drain to go through the year knowing that I’m swimming in a race that’s probably not clean, and that is what it is. The people that know a lot more about the ...

Tokyo has three times as many out LGBTQ+ athletes as Rio had, but activists say there is ‘still a way to go’ When, still damp from the pool after winning his long-awaited gold medal, British diver Tom Daley declared his pride at being a gay man and also an Olympic champion, there were tears and full hearts across the nation. And while there was little shock – Daley has been a vocal advocate of LGBTQ+ rights for years – there was a joy and ease to his pronouncement that was new. With more publicly out athletes in these Olympics than in all other Games combined, Tokyo 2020 is being hailed as the Rainbow Olympics, with LGBTQ+ rights campaigners hoping its message of positive inclusivity can have a lasting, global impact. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2V3SVoJ

After 17 years at the BBC – from embarrassing herself in front of Pete Tong to forgetting she interviewed Rihanna – Mac hangs up her headphones with an emotional plea to her many fans Annie Mac has a terrible memory. It’s a trait the DJ has mentioned repeatedly in interviews – often blaming her profession’s sleepless lifestyle – and even based an entire podcast series around: Finding Annie was premised on her desire to dig up lost memories related to crucial aspects of her life, from childbirth to Irishness. It’s also been a running joke on her final stretch of BBC Radio 1 shows. As the 43-year-old prepares to depart the station this week after 17 years of broadcasting, she has found herself with the strange task of summing up her own legacy – which is especially hard when you can’t recall great swathes of your career (including an interview with Rihanna). Luckily, the BBC archives act as a handy back-up memory. Mac starts her final broadcast by replaying her first ever link on her f...

After months of political turmoil, following the country’s most contentious election, Fiama Naomi Mata’afa is ready to get to work The prime minister’s office in Apia, the capital of Samoa, which overlooks the harbour, has just been vacated by the man who held the job for 22 years. The bookshelves are still empty, but the room is filled with bunches of flowers, sent by well-wishers keen to congratulate the new incumbent. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3idBYRt

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Secretive club gives members regular access to Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak for ‘political updates’ Labour has called for Boris Johnson to explain the existence of a secretive “advisory board” for wealthy Conservative donors who have received regular access to the prime minister and Rishi Sunak. The Financial Times reported that party chair Ben Elliot, charged with beefing up Tory fundraising efforts, had created the club for some of the party’s most generous donors, some giving £250,000 a year or more. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3xdTZ6C