Olympic boxer Fuchs determined to win her fight against OCD
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. » Ginny Fuchs’ obsessivecompulsive disorder sometimes compels her to use a dozen toothbrushes a night, tossing one after another into the trash when she decides they’ve been contaminated. She has spent hundreds of dollars a week on cleaning products, and she sometimes bleaches the bottoms of her shoes.
She even wears baseball players’ batting gloves when she does her strength-andconditioning work with the U.S. Olympic boxing team so she won’t have to touch the workout mats while doing push-ups.
“It’s like this black cloud that follows me every second of my day,” Fuchs said of OCD, which invades the mind with unreasonable thoughts and fears leading to repetitive, compulsive behavior. “I always feel like I’m in this jail of OCD mind that I can’t get out of.”
Yet Fuchs is headed to Japan next month to compete in the Tokyo Olympic boxing tournament, where she realizes it’s almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with the blood, sweat and saliva of the stranger across from her.
Tokyo Olympics to allow limit of 10,000 local fans in venues
TOKYO » The Tokyo Olympics will allow some local fans to attend when the games open in just over a month, Tokyo organizing committee officials and the IOC said on Monday.
Organizers set a limit of 50% of capacity up to a maximum of 10,000 fans for all Olympic venues
The decision was announced after so-called Five Party talks online with local organizers, the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, the Japanese government and the government of metropolitan Tokyo.
The decision contradicts the country’s top medical adviser, Dr. Shigeru Omi, who recommended last week that the safest way to hold the Olympics would be without fans. He had previously called it “abnormal” to hold the Olympics during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bird, Taurasi earn spots on fifth US Olympic team
Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi will try and become the first five-time Olympic gold medalists in basketball as they lead the U.S women’s team at the Tokyo Games.
The duo was selected for their fifth Olympics on Monday, joining Teresa Edwards as the only basketball players in U.S. history to play in five. Edwards won four gold medals and a bronze in her illustrious Olympic career.
There have been five international basketball players to play in five Olympics: Spain’s Juan Carlos Navarro, Brazil’s Adriana Moises Pinto and Oscar Schmidt, Australia’s Andrew Gaze and Puerto Rico’s Teofilo Cruz.
The 40-year-old Bird and 39-year-old Taurasi will lead a veteran group in Japan, including 6-foot-6 Sylvia Fowles, who will be playing in her fourth Olympics. Tina Charles will be in her third while 6-8 Brittney Griner and Breanna Stewart are back for a second time.