Australia joins ‘substance-checker’ alliance

Nadal to be Spain’s flag-bearer at Rio Games

SYDNEY, April 27, (Agencies): Australia on Wednesday hooked up with Britain, Canada, Japan and the United States in an international alliance allowing athletes to check whether a medication is prohibited in sport and narrow the chances of them breaching doping rules.

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) joined Global DRO, a database allowing athletes to check their medication online simply by entering the product brand name.

It also allows athletes training or competing overseas to see the status of any drugs purchased, rather than having to check each ingredient in a medication individually.

“The collaboration between so many esteemed anti-doping agencies to develop and expand this tool is proof that the fight against doping is a global one,” said ASADA chief Ben McDevitt.

“That athletes can not only check substances purchased at home, but also those in Canada, the US, the UK and Japan will be invaluable for our elite athletes that train and compete on the international stage,” he added.

The initiative was established by the US, Canada and Britain in 2009 with Japan joining in 2013.

It has since dealt with 2.5 million inquiries, with 654,000 searches conducted in 2015 alone.

The sports world has been blighted by several high-profile scandals in recent months, particularly in Russia after a World Anti-Doping Authority independent commission report found evidence of state-sponsored doping.

Earlier this year, Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova, a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, tested positive at the Australian Open for meldonium, which was added to the World AntiDoping Agency’s ban list on January 1.

Sharapova claimed she did not check to see what changes were made to the banned list for 2016.

Amnesty International said Wednesday that inhabitants of Olympic host Rio de Janeiro’s slum favelas are “living in terror” after 11 people were killed in police shootings in the past month.

The rights group said at least 307 people were killed by police in the city last year and called on Brazilian authorities to take action in the 100 days ahead of the start of the Rio Games on August 5.

Victims of police killings account for one in every five homicides in the Olympic city, according to Amnesty.

“Residents in many of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas are living in terror after at least 11 people have been killed in police shootings since the beginning of the month,” the group said.

Authorities “have increasingly taken a hard-line approach against mainly peaceful street protests,” said an Amnesty statement.

“Despite the promised legacy of a safe city for hosting the Olympic Games, killings by the police have been steadily increasing over the past few years in Rio,” said Atila Roque, head of Amnesty International Brazil.

“Many have been severely injured by rubber bullets, stun grenades and even firearms used by police forces during protests,” Roque added.

According to Amnesty figures, Rio state police killed 580 people in 2014 when the country hosted the World Cup. That figure was up 40 percent on 2013 and has since risen to 645 in 2015.

Amnesty said “it is not possible to link this rise in police killings directly to the preparations for the Olympic Games” but added “the statistics reveal a clear pattern of excessive use of force, violence and impunity that taints public security institutions.”

Rafael Nadal will be Spain’s flagbearer at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

The announcement was made Wednesday at an event in Madrid marking the 100-day countdown to the Aug. 5 opening ceremony at Rio’s Maracana Stadium.

It’s the second time Nadal, winner of 14 Grand Slam titles, has been selected as a flag-bearer. The former topranked player was given the honor for the 2012 London Olympics but missed

In this Aug 17, 2008 file photo, Rafael Nadal of Spain celebrates his gold medal with his national flag following his singles finals match against Fernando Gonzalez of Chile during the Beijing

2008 Olympics in Beijing. (AP)

the games because of an injury and NBA star Pau Gasol carried the Spanish flag instead.

Nadal won the singles gold medal in 2008 at the Beijing Games and also played in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

“Spanish sport was in debt to Nadal,” Spanish Olympic Committee president Alejandro Blanco said. “He gave us a lot more than results.”

The announcement came as Nadal defends himself against unproven doping allegations. This week, he filed a lawsuit against a former French minister who accused him of doping and asked the International Tennis Federation to reveal all of his drug-test results to show that he is clean.

Blanco said recently that Nadal deserved to be the flag-bearer in Rio in part because of what he had to go through following the doping allegations made in France.

Roselyne Bachelot, former minister for health and sport, said on French television that Nadal’s seven-month injury hiatus in 2012 was “probably due to a positive doping test.”

Her remarks outraged Spaniards and prompted Nadal to take legal action to defend his “image as an athlete” and to keep “any public figure from making insulting or false allegations against an athlete without any evidence or foundation.”

Swim star Federica Pellegrini, the golden girl of Italian sport, will carry her country’s flag at the Rio Olympics in August, the national Olympic committee CONI announced Wednesday.

The former Olympic champion and 200m freestyle world record holder is Italy’s most high-profile female sports star.

“This is the crowning moment of years and years of a career comprising great defeats and really great victories,” she said in a Tweet after the announcement.

CONI said her selection had been “written in the stars” as the opening ceremony in Rio’s legendary Maracana stadium is on August 5, Pellegrini’s 28th birthday.

“It will crown a dream career that has always been pursued under the signs of talent, sacrifice and passion,” the Olympic committee said.

The glamorous Pellegrini won the 200m freestyle gold in Beijing in 2008 but failed to secure a single medal at London 2012. She is a four-time world champion having won both the 200m and 400m in 2009 and 2011.

Pellegrini made headlines recently when she inadvertently posted her mobile phone number on Twitter, on which she has nearly half a million followers.

The mistake resulted in an avalanche of requests from admirers for her WhatsApp details as well.

Two-time Olympic 400-meter hurdles gold medalist Felix Sanchez has announced his retirement at the age of 38 and will not compete in the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro.

Sanchez was born in the United States but his parents were Dominican and he decided to compete in the Olympics for the Dominican Republic. He won 43 straight 400-meter hurdles races between 2001 and 2004. He took home gold medals in the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the 2012 games in London.

He announced his retirement Tuesday in a video press conference.

“My son was born just a few months ago and he needs me in these moments,” Sanchez said.

The hurdler known as “Super Sanchez” said that he will be an announcer with ESPN during the Rio games.

The Olympic ambitions of two Indian sprinters are in jeopardy after a power failure at a weekend qualifying event prevented electronic timing, and their hand-timed performances — good enough to make the team for Rio de Janeiro — do not count.

Miya Kumar Mallick and Srabani Nanda recorded 10.09 seconds and 11.23 seconds in the men’s and women’s 100-meter races respectively at the Indian Grand Prix on Sunday, which bettered the qualifying standard 10.16 and 11.32.

The issue was raised in India’s parliament on Tuesday and Sudam Marndi, the sports minister for the eastern state of Orissa, said the issue must be taken “seriously” and urged the national government to help give the two athletes another chance to set a qualifying time.

Visa Inc is forecasting 400,000 to 500,000 international visitors to Rio de Janeiro in August, a projection one of its top marketing executives called “reassuring” given economic and health issues swirling around the August games in Brazil.

Chris Curtin, Visa’s chief brand and innovation marketing officer, said those figures are based on an “enormous amount of transactions” in Visa’s network in the region ranging from hotel nights, entertainment to transportation, as well as third-party historical data.

Visa’s projections are higher than a 2014 prediction from Brazil’s tourism agency of 380,000 foreign visitors, while they are lower than the 590,000 foreign visitors who went to the United Kingdom for the last summer Olympics in 2012, according to UK government statistics.

The Rio Games run from Aug. 5-21 this year. Brazil was awarded the Olympics in 2009 when it was enjoying a period of strong economic growth, but has since fallen into its worst recession in decades, dragged down by a collapse in commodity prices.

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff could also be forced from office before the Olympics, after losing an impeachment vote which has paralyzed her government.

The governing body of swimming says no action will be taken against France’s water polo team for supposedly losing an Olympic qualifier on purpose to get a preferred opponent in the next round.

FINA says the case is closed “without any further consequences.”

France lost to Canada 13-5 in a group match at the men’s qualifying tournament in Italy this month. Both teams advanced to the quarterfinals, where the four winners would qualify for the Rio de Janeiro Games.

Canada then lost to former Olympic champion Spain, and France beat the Netherlands, repeating its victory from the European Championships in January.

FINA says the decision was made after consultations with the FINA technical water polo committee, disciplinary panel and ethics panel.

A French official who was suspended in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic figure skating judging scandal is running in the International Skating Union’s presidential election.

The ISU has confirmed Didier Gailhaguet among four candidates at the election congress from June 6-10 in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

The French skating federation president will face Christopher Buchanan of Britain, Jan Dijkema of the Netherlands and Gyorgy Sallak of Hungary. The winner will replace Ottavio Cinquanta, a 77-year-old Italian who has been president for 22 years.