(Yes, we know it’s 2021 – but OLYMPICS SPECIAL ›› TOKYO 2020 that’s what they are calling it) The NEWS Shed Issue No.13 www.literacyshedplus.com July 16-23, 2021 Let’s go, Tokyo! will still be known as Tokyo 2020 – and to go to the venues, meaning there is no ›› Strict rules amid now go ahead amid strict restrictions. opportunity for tourism. More than 11,000 athletes will com- Athletes will have tests every day, coronavirus pandemic pete and an estimated 79,000 media must socially distance and have been personnel, officials and staff will also be told they must leave Japan within 48 he world’s greatest athletes must involved – but there will be no spectators hours of their event finishing. overcome huge obstacles to pro- allowed at the Tokyo venues. Allowing the Games to go Tduce medal-winning performances Only at venues elsewhere TOKYO ahead at all has angered many as the Olympic Games are set to start in in Japan will some fans be people in Japan, with a recent Tokyo. allowed to watch the action. poll suggesting 80 per cent of The sporting extravaganza described Venues in the Fukushima, people in the country wanted as the greatest show on Earth will have Miyagi and Shizuoka regions it cancelled. a very different look and feel this year. can let in spectators up to 50 per Fans will now hope the lack The Games open on Friday, July 23, cent of their capacity. of atmosphere in empty venues for 17 days of exciting competition. That will include track cycling, 2020 does not affect the athletes’ But it does so amid the coronavirus for example, which is to be held performance or the spectacle pandemic, with cases rising in Tokyo in the Izu Velodrome in Shizuoka. for the millions of television viewers and the Japanese capital officially placed Athletes, media and officials must all around the world. in a state of emergency. follow strict rules. They have to have The Games have already been delayed two negative Covid tests before arriving, The 12-year-old girl setting a for a year because of the pandemic – but and can only leave their accommodation record in Team GB: see page 2 INSIDE YOUR OLYMPICS SPECIAL ›› NEWS page 2 ›› HEROES page 3 ›› RECORDS page 4 ›› HISTORY page 5 ›› PLANNER page 6 2 The NEWS Shed July 16-23, 2021 OLYMPIC NEWS IN BRIEF Absent friend Reach for n A familiar face will be missing from Team GB at the Tokyo Olympics. Long-distance running legend Mo Farah has been a popular figure in the the SKY! British team for the last three Olympics but failed to make the qualifying time for the 10,000 metres this time. Farah won gold at 10,000 metres and 5,000 metres at London 2012 and Rio 2016 and has been concentrating on road racing for the last three years. But after switching back to the ›› Skateboarder is Fact SHED track, he finished 19 seconds outside the 27min 28sec qualifying time at the youngest GB member British Championships in Manchester. New Olympic sports Sam Atkin and Marc Scott will ky Brown will make history as Brit- n Surfing represent Britain in the 10,000 metres. ain’s youngest ever Olympian in n Karate STokyo when she competes in the n Sport climbing Go girls! skateboarding event at the age of 12. n Skateboarding n For the first time at any Olympic Skateboarding is one of six new sports n Baseball Games, there will be more women than at this year’s Olympic Games, and Sky n Softball men in the British team. A total of 376 will compete in the women’s park event. (Baseball and softball were Olympic athletes make up Team GB, of which She will be on familiar ground too – sports in the 1990s and 2000s, but 201 are women and 175 men. her mother, Mieko, is Japanese and Sky were dropped after the 2008 Games) Games organisers say 11,238 athletes was born in Miyazaki. will take part in Tokyo – exactly the Her father, Stuart, is same number as in Rio five years ago – English – which qualifies TOKYO 2017, and finished in the top 10 the and that 49 per cent will be women. Sky for the British team – following year. although he has lived in the She is not the only youngster in And there’s more... United States since he was a the British skateboarding squad n Once the dust has settled on teenager. either. Sky will be joined by the Olympics, Tokyo will host the Sky now spends six 14-year-old Bombette Martin. 16th Paralympic Games for disabled months of the year in Japan 2020 Bombette was born in New sportsmen and women from August 24 and the other six months in York and still lives there, but has to September 5. the United States. an English father and spent much of her Some 4,400 competitors will take Tokyo will not be Sky’s first experi- childhood in Birmingham. Her dad, Jon, part in 540 events across 22 sports. ence of the big time. She first competed was an amateur boxer and his nickname, Badminton and taekwondo are new in the US Open at the age of eight in Bomber, inspired her unusual first name. sports for this year’s Games. The NEWS Shed holiday time! n The News Shed is a digital This is the final edition ofThe newspaper, produced weekly to News Shed for this summer term. inform, entertain and educate pupils and to provide resources for their We hope you all have a great teachers. summer holiday, and we will be back for the new school year in n It is among a whole host of September. educational resources at: www.literacyshedplus.com The next edition will be available to download on September 3. n For contact details please see the website. Keep on reading! July 16-23, 2021 The NEWS Shed 3 OLYMPIC HEROES Nadia Comaneci As a tiny 14-year-old, the Romanian gymnast made sporting history at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada. Gymnastic routines are scored by judges, and Comaneci became the first ever to be given a perfect 10 for her rou- tine on the uneven bars. It was so unprec- edented, the electronic scoreboard was not programmed to show a 10, so her score actually appeared as 1.00. Incredibly, Comaneci went on to be given six more scores of 10 for various routines as she won three gold medals. Stamp of She went on to win two more golds approval in Moscow four years later, to go along- side her two World Championships gold medals and nine from the European Championships. Some of the worldwide Mark Spitz postage stamps The American swimmer was the celebrating undoubted star of the 1972 Munich Jesse Owens’ Olympics, which were marred by a achievement terrorist attack on the Israel team. Spitz won seven gold medals and, Jesse Owens a great athlete he was by winning four amazingly, set a new world record The American athlete was already gold medals. He won the 100 metres, with every one. famous before the 1936 Berlin Olympics long jump and 200 metres on three suc- It took his Olympic tally to 11 for an extraordinary feat a year earlier. cessive days and then, four days later, medals, having won two golds, a Competing at an athletics meeting in was part of the winning American team silver and bronze in Mexico City four Michigan, Owens set world records in in the 4x100 metres relay. years earlier. the long jump, 220 yards sprint and 220 His feat was celebrated around the yards hurdles and equalled world, with countries as far Cathy Freeman the world record in the 100 TOKYO afield as Mongolia, Liberia An indigenous Australian, Freeman was yards – all in the space of 45 and Equatorial Guinea releas- the poster girl of the 2000 Olympics in minutes! ing commemorative post- Sydney. A year later he was in the age stamps featuring Owens’ Specialising in the 400 metres, she had American team for Berlin and image. won silver in Atlanta four years earlier at the centre of controversy as Although he was known and already had two World Champion- a black athlete competing when around the world as Jesse, that ships gold medals and three in the Com- there was so much discrimina- 2020 was not his real name. He was monwealth Games (and would later go tion in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Ger- christened James Cleveland, on to earn a fourth). many. which became shortened to JC, which in She was chosen to light the Olympic Nevertheless, Owens proved what turn morphed into Jesse. torch at the opening ceremony and the build-up, as well as her record, meant she was under huge pressure to win in Usain Bolt Jackie Joyner-Kersee her home Olympics. The Jamaican sprinter became The popular American is one of the Freeman, wearing a revolutionary one of the world’s most popular greatest all-round athletes of the skin-tight full-length running suit, com- sportsmen of the 21st century modern era. plete with hood, duly delivered by win- with his string of record-breaking Competing in the heptathlon as ning the final in 49.11sec. performances. well as the long jump, she won three He completely dominated world golds, a silver and two bronzes at Steve Redgrave sprinting, winning the 100 metres four Games from Los Angeles 1984 The British rower won gold medals at and 200 metres at three successive to Atlanta 1996.