ISHINOMAKI, MIYAGI PREF. – The city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture held a 
ceremony Sunday to go back the 1964 Tokyo Olympics cauldron, after its 4 years on how to understand the location’s restoration from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The Japan Sport Council supplied the cauldron to the town in December 2014 after it becomes eliminated from the former National Stadium in Tokyo. The loan period expires this month. The former National Stadium turned into demolished to make way for the creation of the brand new National Stadium in an effort to be used for the 2020 Tokyo Games. During Sunday’s ceremony, the cauldron turned into lit for the final time in Ishinomaki, and plenty of neighborhood citizens took pix. Miyagi is one of the three northeastern prefectures hit toughest in the 2011 screw-ups, the two others being Iwate and Fukushima. “We made a variety of reminiscences. We’re just grateful (for the cauldron),” stated Kazuo Ito, 72, chairman of the metropolis’s sports activities affiliation. The affiliation has organized marathon occasions to mark the progress of reconstruction from the disaster, with the cauldron getting used as the beginning and finishing factors of the marathon. Anna Takahashi, a nine-year-antique basic college scholar, said, “It’s sad that the cauldron will disappear from Ishinomaki, however, I want to head and spot the Olympics next year.” The cauldron may be displayed in Iwate and Fukushima, in addition to Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, in which it was created, before being transported to the brand new National Stadium.
An internal investigation by means of newbie boxing’s world frame AIBA has raised critical questions about the judging at the 2016 Rio Olympics, with unique suspicion falling on a French professional, French newspaper Le Monde stated on Monday. France basked inside the glow of six boxing medals in Rio, inclusive of golds for brilliant heavyweight Tony Yoka and his now-spouse Estelle Mossely. But three days earlier than the give up of the Olympic match, boxing federation AIBA removed its then govt director Karim Bouzidi from his function due to the fact he became accused of favoring fighters from positive international locations, in line with Le Monde’s document. Le Monde, which executed the research with Bulgarian newspaper Bulgaria Today, said it had seen the inner AIBA file and emails that showed the frame became worried Bouzidi had motivated the selections of so-known as 5-famous person judges in Olympic bouts. An email from AIBA’s then-president Wu Ching-Ko dated November 18, 2016, said the body suspected Bouzidi of performing with another senior professional to persuade the judges, particularly those proposing boxers from France and Uzbekistan.
Bouzidi did now not reply to AFP’s request for comment on Monday. Andre Martin, the top of the French boxing federation, advised Le Monde: “The consequences in Rio have been now not ‘stolen’, they may be sincere. It’s authentic that we knew Bouzidi however we never blackmailed him.” AIBA’s internal investigation found that Bouzidi had the energy to rent the referees and officers for competitions, however, brought there was no direct proof that these adjustments influenced the outcomes of fights. Bouzidi’s arrival in the senior AIBA ranks coincided with a marketing campaign by using France to try to improve its Olympic boxing results after disappointing performances at the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Games. One a part of the approach involved setting up a franchise to take part in World Series Boxing, an worldwide opposition aimed toward swelling AIBA’s coffers. Kevin Rabaud, the former educate of the French group in the WSB collection, said that they had achieved nothing wrong. “We always played through the rules… We organized events in France in order that the athletes should grow to be better regarded. If the combat changed into near, it might play within the boxer’s favor if they have been higher recognized. “In Rio, we got outcomes way to our popularity and our previous effects.” Boxing is already dealing with the chance of expulsion from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Its inclusion depends on the outcome of an investigation into AIBA via the International Olympic Committee, which has presented the frame with a listing of 41 questions thru audit company Deloitte, who will then file returned to the Olympic body. Controversial Uzbek businessman Gafur Rakhimov, who the US Treasury Department has connected to “transnational criminal organizations”, stepped down as AIBA president on Friday. Relations between the IOC and AIBA have been hit tough on the 2016 Rio Olympics when 36 officers and referees had been suspended amid allegations of about solving. Rakhimov insists the allegations in opposition to him are “politically encouraged lies”.
