When the 2018 World Fencing Championships, which run from July 19 to 27, were awarded to the Chinese hosts in 2015, the decision was applauded by China's Olympic champion Lei Sheng.
It began with a speech on 4 July in 2007 in Guatemala and it will end with handshakes, disappointment, joy and presentation of a small gold trophy in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium on 15 July 2018.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Wimbledon Championships, which get underway tomorrow, going open - a switch that has transformed the fortunes of generations of players, not to mention the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club which has hosted its event in south-west London since 1877.
Ivo Ferriani, who will seek a third consecutive four-year term as President of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) this week, has apparently developed something of a mantra in recent years. "First four years - evaluation and creation. Second - implementation. Third - legacy".
It was a fitting coincidence that last Thursday's (June 14) signing of the Paris 2024 protocol - the proposed financial blueprint for the Games - took place in the Hôtel de Ville's lavish Salle des Arcades under a classically painted ceiling depicting the theme of architecture.
Next Wednesday (June 13), the FIFA Congress is due to convene in Moscow to decide the host of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Next Thursday evening (June 7) in central London, a group of rowing enthusiasts will stroll across the Thames from the terrace of the House of Commons and take up station outside St Thomas’ Hospital, where a memorial stone is to be unveiled.
It is coated with Oxfordshire dust, the legacy of its storage berth in a garden shed on the estate where Winston Churchill was born. But while it is showing its age, the navy blue plastic ring binder I hold in my hands deserves a place in Olympic business history.
A 2009 survey found that there were 11.8 million active skateboarders in the world. It also estimated that skateboarding was worth an estimated $4.8 billion (£3.5 billion/€4 billion) in annual revenue. Neither figure is likely to have diminished in the meantime.
Exactly 45 years ago today, Margaret Court, Australia's 30-year-old multiple Grand Slam winner, stepped onto a court in the tennis outpost of Ramona, California.
As the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championships slide into cruising speed in Denmark this weekend, the betting has been less than crystal clear regarding which of the "big six" is likely to win it.
Johannes Vetter is pawing the ground.
The first women’s European Rowing Championships were staged on the Bosbaan course in Amsterdam in August 1954. Yet it took quite some time once he became International Rowing Federation (FISA) President in 1958 for it to occur to Thomi Keller that women’s rowing ought to be part of the major expansion in their activities he was overseeing.
Patrick Baumann was politeness personified when we met in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel during a particularly freezing day at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang recently.
Eighty years after it was released, Olympia, the epic film of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, remains one of the greatest sports films of all time.
At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Iranian judoka Arash Miresmaeili was disqualified for weighing in at nearly four pounds above the limit for his weight class of his under-66 kilograms match against an Israeli opponent Ehud Vaks in the first round. It was claimed Miresmaeili had gone on an eating binge to protest the International Olympic Committee's recognition of the state of Israel. Iran does not recognise the state of Israel, and Miresmaeili's actions won praise from high-ranking Iranian officials. Mohammad Khatami, the country's President at the time, was quoted as saying Miresmaili's actions would be "recorded in the history of Iranian glories". He was later awarded $125,000 by the Government - the same amount given to Olympic gold medallists.
Reporting to the Director Communications, the Senior Manager, Media Relations & Communications will ensure a true 360° approach to strategic communications, using global media and wider platform opportunities to raise awareness of the FEI and equestrian sport, reinforcing the Federation’s reputation with key stakeholders, and securing strong profile to support the FEI’s commercial drive with new sponsors.
Alisher Usmanov, the Uzbek-born President of the International Fencing Federation, has positioned himself as one of the most influential figures in all of sport. With the World Championships beginning in China this week, Mike Rowbottom profiles the powerful billionaire.
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