Nadal ‘confident’ ahead of Rio despite lack of practice

3 judges banned, more warned

MADRID, July 20, (Agencies): Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal is optimistic he will be ready for the Rio Olympics despite heading into next month’s Games having not played a competitive match since May 27 due to a left wrist injury.

The 14-time grand slam champion has been sidelined since injuring a tendon that forced him to pull out of the French Open after the second round and miss Wimbledon.

World number four Nadal was expected to return to action at the Toronto Masters next week before travelling to Brazil but he will also sit out that tournament to continue his preparations.

“I hope each day to go (progress) a little bit more and arrive in Rio well prepared, although as I always say there is nothing certain in this life,” Nadal told reporters in his home town of Manacor on Wednesday.

Nadal, who won gold at the Olympics in Beijing eight years ago, is eager to compete in Rio after missing the 2012 Games in London with a knee injury.

Three gymnastics judges have been banned and five more given warnings for biased or unsatisfactory scoring at recent events, the sport’s world governing body announced on Wednesday.

None of the eight will participate at the Rio Olympics, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) said, emphasising that the “vast majority” of judges had produced “excellent work.”

The sanctioned judges were not named while the disciplinary commission rejected six further cases, the FIG said.

The FIG added that one judge was banned for four months and two more for three months each, all for “biased” judgements. Of the five who were warned, three were for “biased” and two for “unsatisfactory” judgements.

Former 100m world champion Kim Collins has been named to his sixth Olympics at the age of 40 after settling issues with the St. Kitts and Nevis Olympic Committee.

Collins, who won the 2003 world 100m crown at Paris, and his homeland’s Olympic officials released a joint statement Wednesday confirming the agreement “following closure on the long-standing issues between the two parties.”

Head coach Julius Kirwa would not hazard a guess how many medals Kenyan athletes will win at next month’s Rio Olympics but is confident the nation, renowned for its distance runners, can shrugg off the disappointment of London Games four years ago.

Kirwa had predicted 12 gold medals at London but Kenya finished a poor 28th in the Games, with 11 medals that included two gold, four silver and five bronze medals.

Kirwa said Olympic 800 metres champion David Rudisha’s world leading 1:43.35 victory at the Istvan Gyulai Memorial Meeting in Szekesfehervar, Hungary, on Monday augured well for the team.

Canadian tennis player Eugenie Bouchard is undecided about her participation in next month’s Rio Olympics over concerns about the Zika virus, the 22-year-old said.

The world number 40 shared her fears after her shock defeat by Camila Giorgi of Italy in the opening round of the women’s singles in the Washington Open on Tuesday.

The Zika virus has been linked to severe birth defects in infants born to infected women, and possible neurological problems in adults.

When Kenyan-born Lonah Chemtai came to Tel Aviv in 2009 to care for the children of her country’s ambassador to the Jewish state, she never dreamed that one day she would run for Israel at the Olympics.

Chemtai, a diminutive 27-year-old and a marathon novice, gained Israeli citizenship earlier this year through

In this Aug 17, 2008 file photo, Rafael Nadal of Spain bites his gold medal after beating Fernando Gonzalez of Chile during their gold medal singles tennis match at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in

Beijing. (AP)

her coach, Dan Salpeter, after the two married in Kenya. They will be in Rio next month but a podium finish is not expected.

The unassuming athlete’s inclusion in the Israeli team was confirmed only at the last minute after she was granted Israeli citizenship days before the deadline for her to be eligible to run for Israel.

Triple Olympic gold medal winner Kenenisa Bekele said he was bitterly disappointed to be left out of Ethiopia’s team for the Rio Olympics and blamed members of the country’s athletics federation he said knew nothing of the sport.

The 5,000 and 10,000 metres world record holder was left out of the marathon team having not run enough big races over the past year.

A mix-up over the administration of asthma medicine has cost Norwegian cross-country skier Martin Johnsrud Sundby his World Cup and Tour de Ski titles from the 2014-15 season following a judgment by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Johnsrud Sundby’s failure to declare his use of a nebulizer on the advice of team doctor Knut Gabrielsen breached World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules, and sport’s highest court CAS handed the 31-year-old a two-month ban effective from July 11.

“The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has concluded that Martin Johnsrud Sundby has violated the WADA rules through wrongful use of the legal asthma drug Ventoline,” the Norwegian Ski Federation (NSF) said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The NSF assumes full responsibility in the matter, as the federation was of the opinion that it was not necessary to apply for a therapeutic use exemption (TUE).”

Two Russian weightlifters have been banned for doping in a further hit to the credibility of both Russian sport and weightlifting ahead of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Former European under-23 champion Alexei Selyutin was banned for four years and Russian national champion Yekaterina Vlasova for 18 months, the Russian anti-doping agency says, citing the Russian weightlifting federation. The agency did not provide details of the offenses.

While Selyutin and Vlasova were unlikely to make the Russian team for Rio, their bans are a further blow for Russian weightlifting, which already risks being barred from the Olympics altogether for numerous earlier doping cases.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport says it has dismissed a request by 2008 Olympic race walking champion Alex Schwazer to lift his provisional ban from competition over a new doping allegation.

The Italian athlete, who was banned for three years and nine months after testing positive for EPO before the 2012 Olympics, returned to competition and won the 50-kilometer event at the world championships in Rome in May.