Tokyo to hold gymnastics meet featuring foreign teams
Brown quits as coach of Australian men’s team for Olympics
TOKYO, Oct 13, (AP): Tokyo is planning to hold an international gymnastics meet next month that will exempt non-Japanese athletes from a 14-day quarantine period, an approach that might foreshadow planning for next year’s postponed Olympics.
The Japanese Gymnastics Association announced the meet will feature athletes from the United States, Russia, China and Japan.
The one-day event is set for Nov 8 at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium. The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that 2,000 fans will be allowed to attend, and it said athletes’ travel will be restricted while in the country.
Kyodo said the non-Japanese athletes will take a polymerase chain reaction test before they leave home, and will also be tested daily in Japan. The event will involve 32 gymnasts – eight from each country.
OLYMPICS
Tokyo organizers are studying contingencies from next year’s Olympics, which are scheduled to open on July 23, 2021. The most difficult problems is how to let 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes compete in Tokyo and keep from spreading the coronavirus.
In addition to athletes, organizers will have to accommodate thousands of team officials, technical officials who run the competitions, media, broadcasters, and sponsors. Also up in the air is the question of having fans attend events, or of allowing non-Japanese fans to even enter the country.
Former Philadelphia 76ers coach Brett Brown won’t be guiding the Boomers at the Tokyo Olympics after informing Basketball Australia he can no longer commit to the job.
“The uncertainties around the direction of my professional future unfortunately mean that I cannot commit to the time and preparation that this job deserves and requires,” Brown said in a statement Tuesday. “The difficulties around traveling internationally with my family during the pandemic have also contributed to my decision.”
The 76ers fired Brown in August, a day after his seventh season with the team ended in a first-round postseason sweep.
Brown had worked with the Australian men’s team in the 1990s and early 2000s and again from 2009-12 before joining 76ers. He was hired again in November last year on a short-term basis for the Olympic assignment after Andrej Lemanis quit, and had been expected to do work with the Boomers during the NBA break.
But the Tokyo Olympics were postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the NBA season was also seriously interrupted.
Further complicating the arrangement, a later than usual start to the next NBA season may mean some players and coaches will miss the Olympics.
Basketball Australia chief executive Jerril Rechter said he understood Brown’s position and would start the process of finding a replacement.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is creating a challenging environment for all sports in which to operate,” Rechter said. “The Tokyo Olympics is an important event for Basketball Australia and our male athletes, as collectively we believe the Boomers have an excellent opportunity to claim their first ever Olympic medal.”
Charlie Moore, the 400-meter hurdles champion at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, has died. He was 91.
Moore died Thursday from pancreatic cancer, according to World Athletics. Cornell University also confirmed the passing of the school’s former athletic director and star athlete.
Moore won the 400 hurdles in the rain in 1952 in 50.8 seconds to tie the Olympic record he set in the quarter-finals. Moore also earned a silver medal in Helsinki on the United States’ 1,600-meter relay team. After the Olympics, he set a world record of 51.6 in the 440 hurdles at the British Empire Games in London.
Charles Moore Jr grew up in Pennsylvania and was a standout at Mercersburg Academy before going on to Cornell. He was inducted into Cornell’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1978 and the USA Track and Field Hall in 1999.
Moore donated his two Olympic medals to Mercersburg Academy.
“I couldn’t figure out how you divide two medals among nine children,” Moore said in a recent interview posted on the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee website. “Mercersburg gave me my start and they’ll be there for everybody to see, including my children.”
Moore went on to become a successful business executive, investment fund manager, athletics administrator and later an author and philanthropist.
His father, Charles “Crip” Moore Sr, was an alternate as a hurdler for the US in the 1924 Paris Olympics.
“My father was the one whose idea it was I should make the Olympic team. He was my best friend, also my mentor and also the guy who pushed the hell out of me,” Moore told the USOPC website. “I loved it. He’d say, ‘Charlie I want you do to this’, and I would say, ‘Yes, sir’.”
Moore helped pioneer a 13-step approach to the hurdles, which is used today. Kevin Young set the longstanding 400-meter hurdles record in 1992 with his time of 46.78 seconds.
Information on services for Moore will be announced later.