Athletics

Greg Rutherford 'can't envisage' Olympics without fans amid Tokyo 2020 doubts
Athletics

Greg Rutherford says an Olympics staged behind closed doors would “lose its edge” and be nothing like as special. Tokyo 2020 boss Toshiro Muto admits there is talk of hosting the rescheduled Games without fans and Olympic chief Thomas Bach has not ruled it out. Rutherford has sympathy for the organisers and the challenge they face in bringing athletes from 205 countries together safely during a global pandemic. But whilst

James Dasaolu: Sprinter sets sights on Tokyo Olympics after injury comeback
Athletics

Media playback is not supported on this device James Dasaolu is too modest to put it on a business card. But some of his more curious clients get there eventually. “I’ll generally just say I’m an Olympian and that is kind of it,” he told BBC Sport. “But sometimes some of them have a Google and say ‘I didn’t realise you were the second-fastest man in British history.” You could

Tokyo 2020: Lord Coe calls for Olympics postponement
Athletics

World Athletics president Lord Coe has called for this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo to be postponed. In a letter to International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach, Coe says that an Olympics in July 2020 is “neither feasible or desirable” because of the coronavirus crisis. The IOC has given itself four weeks to decide on the future of the 2020 Games. Options include a delay of several months or,

Olympics chief told Tokyo 2020 must be postponed as athletes' worries grow
Athletics

It's the nightmare scenario Tokyo 2020 organisers dare not contemplate – and for which they can offer no guarantees. As calls for this summer’s Olympics in Japan to be postponed grew from background murmurs to a full-blown chorus, Indian table tennis star Sharath Kamal delivered an unplayable serve to the host nation. What happens if a single person – just one – contracts the coronavirus plague in the athletes’ village,

Olympic boss Thomas Bach admits for first time Tokyo Games may well be postponed
Athletics

Olympic chiefs admitted for the first time last night that the Tokyo Games could well be postponed – but promised they would not be cancelled. Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, revealed he had written to athletes confirming a decision to delay sport’s greatest show was under consideration in the face of the coronavirus crisis. “Human lives take precedence over everything, including the staging of the Games,” he

UK Athletics made ‘reasonable’ decisions over Nike Oregon Project, report finds
Athletics

UK Athletics made decisions that “were reasonable at the time” in two internal reviews regarding allegations centred on the Nike Oregon Project, an independent report has found. The governing body held separate reviews related to the NOP, first in the wake of allegations made in a BBC Panorama documentary in 2015 about the project and its head coach Alberto Salazar, and again in 2017 after an interim US Anti-Doping Agency

Parkrun numbers stay healthy as runners remain undeterred by coronavirus outbreak
Athletics

The coronavirus outbreak may have led to the cancellation of numerous sporting events last weekend but recreational runners do not seem to have been deterred. Statistics recorded by Parkrun – organisers of the popular series of free, weekly, timed runs that now take place in parks across 22 countries – suggest the British public were as keen to get out and run as they usually are. A total of 139,873

National athletics championships postponed
Athletics

Australia’s national athletics championships have been postponed due to coronavirus, throwing Olympics preparation into chaos. The national titles are the Olympic qualifying event and where the Australian team for Tokyo was to be finalised. The Olympics themselves remain in doubt despite official insistence that they will proceed. The national titles were to be held on March 26 in Sydney. Swimming’s national championships next month have also been called off. Source:

Team GB athletes agree deal over Olympic sponsorship rules
Athletics

Team GB athletes will be allowed greater freedom to promote their own sponsors at the Olympics after striking a deal to ease rules on advertising. A group of Team GB athletes were in legal dispute with the British Olympic Association (BOA) over their freedom to work with sponsors during the Games. Athletes had previously faced strict limits on endorsing sponsors. The BOA says a new agreement balances its own needs

Blake Leeper: Paralympian appeals to CAS in bid to make 2020 Olympics
Athletics

Double amputee Blake Leeper has launched an appeal to run at the Tokyo Olympics after he was banned from competing by World Athletics. Leeper runs with prosthetic blades and qualified for the 2019 World Championships but was not allowed to compete while his case was reviewed. He has now appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) to aim to qualify for Tokyo. Paralympian Oscar Pistorius won a similar