US Basketball team Age is no barrier opens camp in Las for Olympic Vegas with new gymnast faces warrior Chusovitina WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 201616 19 Dozens of wrestlers sue WWE over neurological injuries Page 17 Brazil aims to box up medals RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil got one Olympic medal in box- ing in 1968, three at the London 2012 Games and now the country’s boxers hope to turn home advantage into gold. To test the mood ahead of the first Games to allow professional boxers, AFP interviewed three Brazilian team members, all from the northeastern state of Bahia, which some compare to Latin America’s boxing hub Cuba: Adriana Araujo, 34, a lightweight and Brazil’s only female medalist (bronze) in 2012. Joedison Teixeira, known as Chocolate, 22, middleweight. Robenilson de Jesus, 28, bantamweight, a quarter-finalist in 2012. MEDAL CHANCES? Araujo: “No one goes out hoping for a bronze or silver medal. We all want to be champion. The training is hard- er than the actual fight. We suffer to become champions.” Chocolate: “I was the first Brazilian champion in the 2013 World Boxing Championships and since then, expecta- tions have been raised. Last year I won bronze at the Pan-American Games and at the end of 2015, I won the Olympic trials where you had high-ranked fighters, including several boxers who’d already qualified. “I don’t feel much pressure because these are my first Olympics and so I’m going to do my best with a decent chance of a medal on the horizon.” De Jesus: “I came close to a medal in London. I hope to get on that podium and to sing our national anthem in front of the home crowd.” Bahia, ‘Cuba of Brazil’ - Araujo: “Bahia is the Cuba of Brazil. People from there are born with their hips moving. They do that a lot in the dancing at Carnival time.” Chocolate: “Our state lives and breathes boxing. Some weekends after fights we use the gyms for club training and for small, school-age tourna- ments.” De Jesus: “Bahia is Brazil’s boxing breeding ground. Every Olympics we have three or four boxers from Bahia qualifying. We’re very serious about getting onto the national team.” PROS IN OLYMPIC BOXING: ‘CRAZY’ Araujo: “For the women, it doesn’t change anything, but for the men, I think it’s crazy. The professionals can’t have adapted to Olympic boxing in the two months (since the decision was made).” Chocolate: “The pros won’t have any advantage. They are used to only getting warmed up in about the third or fourth round. In ama- teur boxing you don’t have time for that. You get going more quickly. In three rounds it’s over. I don’t think a pro- fessional will become champion.” De Jesus: “The profes- sionals won’t succeed. It was a bad idea. It would have been good only if they’d been given time to adapt. For the 2020 Games, they’ll be able to get ready, but not with only two months to prepare for these Games.” This combination of pictures created yesterday shows some of the top Russian athletes that may miss the upcoming 2016 summer Olympics in Rio as the International THINKING OF MUHAMMAD ALI Olympic Committee (IOC) said yesterday it will study “legal options” on banning all Russian athletes from the Rio Games and also ordered a disciplinary commission to Araujo: “He was and always will be the icon of our look into the role of Russian officials in a state-run doping system. The IOC executive held emergency telephone talks yesterdayafter a World Anti-Doping Agency com- sport and of world sport in general. It’s sure we’re miss- missioned report said there had been state-sanctioned doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and other major events. Top row, from left: Sergey Shubenkov (men’s ing him now, but I’m sure he’s at peace.” Chocolate: “He 110 metres hurdles), Yelena Isinbayeva (women’s pole vault), Vladimir Morozov (men’s 50-metre freestyle swim), and Yuliya Efimova (women’s 100m breaststroke swim). had a significant impact on my life by overcoming preju- Above row, from left: Sofya Velikaya (Women’s sabre), Aliya Mustafina (Artistic Gymnastics), Dmitriy Muserskiy (L) and Dmitriy Ilinykh (men’s volleyball), and Evgenia dice. He lived in a time where this was very strong.... I’ve Kanaeva (Rhythmic Gymnastics). — AFP listened to what he said for a long time and his death hit me hard. I was very sad, I was in mourning.” De Jesus: “He’s an icon of world boxing. His footwork inspired me a lot. Those who come to see me fight will see that I only fight sideways, using my hips. His style was to show his IOC weighs Russia Rio Games ban technical quality and his speed. That’s what I loved and he will be with me in these Games.” — AFP LAUSANNE: The International Olympic that “Banning Russia will tarnish Olympic spirit”. Committee held emergency talks yesterday on The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) whether to ban Russia from the Rio Games after vowed to fight to “protect the rights of clean an investigation found rampant state-run dop- athletes,” while seeking to undermine the credi- ing at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games and other bility of McLaren’s key witness, the dismissed Rio focus on Uchimura, Biles events. former boss of Russia’s anti-doping lab Grigory A damning report commissioned by the Rodchenkov, who admits he was central to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) detailed an cheating scheme. The ROC insisted that collec- in Olympic glamour sport elaborate cheating scheme that affected 30 tively punishing all Russian competitors based sports with help from the FSB state intelligence on Rodchenkov’s evidence left “the integrity of RIO DE JANEIRO: Key points on the Olympic gymnastics Olympics since 1976 including gold in 1984, 2000 and 2004. agency. After the report was released by lead the Olympic Movement...endangered.” competition in Rio: Comaneci was 14 when she starred in Montreal, but the age investigator Canadian law professor Richard Gymnastics is one of the Olympic glamour sports where limit has since been raised and female athletes must turn McLaren, top sport figures from across the ‘FAILSAFE’ CHEATING breathtaking acrobatic skills, gravity-defying displays of 16 in the Olympic year. Chinese gymnast Dong Fangxiao globe called for all Russian competitors to be McLaren said his team uncovered forensic control, strength, flexibility, balance, and graceful choreog- was stripped of a bronze medal after it was found she was banned from Rio Games which start on August evidence that proved Rodchenkov’s claims. The raphy always prove popular. With its roots in ancient 14 at the 2000 Games. This year Uzbekistan’s Oksana 5. IOC president Thomas Bach said Russia’s Canadian lawyer said the coverup started in Greece, gymnastics has a military background with the use Chusovitina will compete in a record-breaking seventh actions were “a shocking and unprecedented 2010 after Russia’s “abysmal” results at the of modern apparatus developed in Germany and France in Olympics that will see her become the oldest female gym- attack on the integrity of sports and on the Vancouver Winter Olympics and continued until the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Artistic gymnastics nast to perform at the age of 41. Olympic Games.” He said the organisation “will 2015 after the Sochi Games. It included the not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions 2013 World Athletics Championships in has been a fixture at every Games since the first modern In the early 20th century Triathlon (swimming, cycling available against any individual or organization Moscow and 2013 World University Games in Olympics in Athens in 1896, with female gymnasts allowed and running), rope climbing and club swinging were implicated,” including with respect to Rio de Kazan. At Sochi, the FSB helped Rodchenkov’s to compete from 1928. Rhythmic gymnastics was intro- included in gymnastics. Nowadays the difference between Janeiro. staff destroy supposedly tamper-proof urine duced in 1984 and Trampolining in 2000. the men’s and women’s events are the apparatus. From Bach led a phone conference on Tuesday samples that would have seen a Russian athlete Japan’s Kohei Uchimura and American Simone Biles are 1936, in addition to the team and all-around, the men com- with the IOC’s powerful executive board. If the caught doping and swapping them for clean the stars to watch in Rio. Uchimura, 27, became the first pete on six apparatus-floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, par- panel calls for Russia’s exclusion from Rio, it ones, according to the report. gymnast to win a sixth consecutive world all-around title allel bars and high bar. The women also have the team and would mark the first time a country has been The ploy involved a “clean urine bank” that last year and is bidding to become the first man to defend all-around and from 1952 have competed on four appara- banned from an Olympic Games over doping. was full of Russian competitors’ samples and his Olympic crown since compatriot Sawao Kato in 1972. tus-vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor where they later secretly transported by the FSB from DEBATING COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT Moscow to an FSB building located handily Japan will also be bidding to topple two-time champions perform to music. Rhythmic gymnastics, with its origins in WADA led calls in support of Russia’s ban, a next to the Sochi Olympic testing laboratory, China in the team event, after breaking their rivals 12-year Ancient Egypt, is confined to women and combines ballet, position backed by the German Olympic body the report said.