Brazil could buy poorly selling Oly tickets

Australia’s Mitchell, Mathews qualify for Rio

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 2, (Agencies): Brazil’s government sounded the alarm Saturday over poor sales of Olympic tickets just five months before Rio hosts South America’s first Summer Games.

With worries about the Zika virus, high crime and a major political crisis already overshadowing the Aug 5 opening ceremony, Brazil now faces the embarrassing prospect of empty stadiums.

Only 50 percent of tickets to the Olympics have been sold so far, Rio 2016 organizing committee spokesman Phil Wilkinson told AFP on Saturday. For the Paralympics, which follow the main Games, the figure is far worse: only 12 percent sold.

Ricardo Leyser, who this week replaced George Hilton as Brazil’s minister of sport, said in an interview with Folha newspaper that he was working on a plan to boost purchases.

One measure could be the government buying up unsold tickets, particularly for the Paralympics, and distributing them among schools.

“There is a perception that the Brazilian population has not yet woken up for the Games. We are going to work ener-

OLYMPICS

getically on this because it’s still not in people’s heads. We need to sound an alert so that people remember this event and go and buy tickets,” he said.

Morgan Mitchell and Luke Mathews automatically qualified for this year’s Rio Olympics after victories at the Australian Athletics Championships in Sydney on Saturday.

Morgan, undefeated in the women’s 400-metres this year, won the one-lap final in an Olympic Games qualifying time of 51.84 seconds.

Mathews’ win, in the 800m, was more dramatic after Olympic Games qualifier

Josh Ralph tumbled out of contention and finished eighth.

Bobby Lea, a two-time US Olympic cyclist who had a doping ban reduced from 16 months to six, was named to the US team for the Rio Games on Friday.

USA Cycling announced the move, which came after an arbitrator ruled that Lea was eligible under the US Olympic Committee rules and should be selected.

In February, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Lea’s doping violation for a positive test at the US championships in August of 2015 for noroxycodo-ne, a metabolite of the banned substance oxycodone.

However, the CAS panel trimmed the length of his ban.

Following the CAS ruling, Lea filed for arbitration under the USOC bylaws, arguing that USA Cycling should name him to the Olympic Long Team despite the fact that he was serving his suspension at the time of the team nomination.

Charlie Buckingham of Newport Beach, California, Marion Lepert of Belmont, California, and Pedro Pascual of Miami have won selection to the US Olympic sailing team.

Buckingham qualified in the Laser class and Lepert and Pascual in the windsurfer class.

They earned selection based on their combined results at January’s Sailing World Cup Miami and the Trofeo Princesa Sofia this week. It is the first Olympic selection for all three sailors.

France’s star sprinter Florent Man

audou failed in his bid to qualify for the Olympic Games 100m freestyle on Friday when he finished third at the national championships.

Manaudou had been hoping to pull off a 50m-100m freestyle double in August in Rio but his time of 48.10sec was bettered by Jeremy Stravius (47.97sec) and

Clement Mignon (48.01).