Nadal can’t understand Oly snub

Trio for Rio set to make history

PARIS, May 26, (Agencies): Rafael Nadal said he cannot understand why a host of players are snubbing the Olympics, “the most important event in the world of sport”.

Nadal won gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 but a knee injury prevented him from defending his title in London four years later where he was also due to be Spain’s flagbearer at the opening ceremony.

“The Olympic Games is the most important event in the world of sport,” said Nadal after reaching the third round of the French Open on Thursday.

“I cannot understand people who don’t want to go to Olympics. It’s an event that you can compete only once, twice, or three in your career maybe, if you are lucky. So you don’t want to miss that.”

So far, 17th-ranked John Isner of the United States, Austrian 15th seed Dominic Thiem, Bernard Tomic, the world number 22 from Australia and Spanish veteran Feliciano Lopez, 23 in the rankings, have all announced they are giving the Olympics in Rio in August a miss.

Meanwhile, Leila, Liina and Lily Luik from Estonia will make Olympics history when they cross the start line for the women’s marathon

Nadal

in Rio.

Twins competing in the same event is not uncommon at the Olympic level. But the Luiks are believed to be the first identical triplets to compete against each other.

The blond, blued-eyed sisters from the southern Estonian university town of Tartu, now 30 years old, only took up serious distance running when they were 24.

“We have been active since childhood, we love dancing, we love to be active and this pushed us to professional sports,” Lily said.

Liina, who got the sisters to start running, said that long-distance running appealed to them more than the highly technical nature of sprinting.

After a couple of years, they realised they were good enough to take part in international competitions. They decided to try for the Olympics, adopting the slogan “Trio to Rio” to give shape to their hopes of all three competing in the Olympics.

“We saw ... after one year we had good results in Estonia and we thought we could achieve something good also outside of Estonia and to do some big competitions like European Championships and the Olympic games,” Lily.

In competition, the sisters say they support each other emotionally and even in race tactics, such as taking it in turns to act as wind breakers.