In which World Athletics makes clear the postpone train has left the station

In which World Athletics makes clear the postpone train has left the station

The news Sunday about what is really what did not come from Lausanne, where the International Olympic Committee said there is now a four-week window to decide whether the Tokyo Olympic Games would start as scheduled on July 24 (in our world all things are possible until they are not) or things will instead shift to some sort of a Plan B (hello).

The hard news instead came from Monaco, and World Athletics.

In two pieces, World Athletics, formerly the IAAF, made it crystal clear that, barring a miracle in public health circles, the figurative train has already left the station, and the only question about Plan B is — when?

Getting to Plan B — and with kinder, gentler messaging for a world that needs it

Getting to Plan B — and with kinder, gentler messaging for a world that needs it

When I was a boy growing up in the cornfields of Ohio, my younger brother and I thought one of the greatest days imaginable was riding our bikes the several miles to the Ben Franklin five-and-dime store, there to peruse the comic books, to see what might have come in since our last check-in.

The summer before I turned 11, drama! DC Comics created Earth-Two, a parallel world. This allowed them to publish Superman stories without regard for the line of Superman tales that had developed over decades.

A fresh start, if you will.

Imagine if in our Earth-Two the International Olympic Committee had 1/ a more nimble communications department and 2/ could thus tell the story it should be telling in a world in crisis because of the coronavirus.

IOC: 100 percent right to keep pressing forward

IOC: 100 percent right to keep pressing forward

The International Olympic Committee put out a self-styled “communique” Tuesday that was really long but can be reduced to the three main points in one essential paragraph.

One, the IOC “remains fully committed” to Tokyo 2020. The Games are due to begin July 24.

Two, because there remain four months to go, there is “no need for any drastic decisions at this stage.”

Three, “any speculation at this moment would be counterproductive.”

Sun Yang gets busted. Sure. But eight years?

Sun Yang gets busted. Sure. But eight years?

Sun Yang, the Chinese swim star and three-time Olympic gold medalist, earned himself an eight-year ban Friday in a case in which the verdict itself was always a no-brainer.

Why?

You don’t get to take the law into your hands, figuratively and literally.

Or, put another way, even in the Far East, it’s not the Old West out there.

Or, if you prefer, vigilante justice is no justice at all.

From 13 days in a boat to winning at a Grand Slam

From 13 days in a boat to winning at a Grand Slam

DÜSSELDORF, Germany — Latakia is Syria’s principal port, on the country’s western shoreline. Turkey is just to the north.

The war in Syria has been going on for nearly nine years already. Three years into the violence, in 2014, in Latakia, Tareq Jamal and his cousin, Najib, decided to risk it all. They made their way up the shoreline to Turkey, and from there into a wooden boat packed with people.

It took 13 days, across the Mediterranean Sea, to reach Italy. “BIg waves,” he recalled. “Women were crying.” He paused in telling the story. “We were almost to die.”

On Saturday, Tareq Jamal, representing what was called the International Refugee Team, not only competed at the Düsseldorf Grand Slam, he won a match. Ranked 429th in the world in the men’s 73-kilo category — to repeat, No. 429 — he defeated a competitor ranked No. 69 and made a solid case to go to the Olympic Games this summer in Tokyo.

Angelica Delgado and hope for USA judo

Angelica Delgado and hope for USA judo

DÜSSELDORF, Germany — Just moments before, Angelica Delgado — an American! — had won a bronze medal in the women’s under 52-kilo class, and convincingly at that, a no-doubt ippon, and now she was standing in the tunnel here at the ISS Dome, with her coach and the USA Judo high-performance director, and there were tears in her eyes, and these were tears of happiness and relief — and expectation, too.

“It feels really good to get a medal in a qualifying year,” the Tokyo Olympics just months away, the 29-year-old Delgado said.

She added, “To make a statement like this in a qualifying year means I know I can get a medal at the Olympics.”

She wiped away a tear. “I’m just really happy.”

RIP Kobe ... and Shayne

RIP Kobe ... and Shayne

Early last Saturday morning, our nephew — my wife’s sister’s son, Shayne Rebbetoy — fell to his death. He was just 16.

Flying back to California as soon as possible, landing Sunday afternoon at a very foggy Los Angeles International airport, the news: Kobe Bryant and eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, had been killed just hours earlier in a helicopter crash near Calabasas.

We have spent this week in shock and grief, and in preparing for the seemingly infinite number of details that attend Shayne’s memorial service, which is set for Saturday. It is a fascinating thing to be very intensely mourning the passing of a teenage boy, a sweet and gentle soul you have known since he literally came to life, with the very public outpouring around the globe for a basketball icon who for some 20 years, since he came into all of our lives, inspired countless hopes and dreams.

Shayne’s mother, Lisa Hudson, my wife’s sister, was one of the early pioneers on the women’s pro beach volleyball circuit, and has for many years been active in the action sports industry. Her friends include Olympic medalists and skateboard legends, and they have rallied around her and her husband, Jack Rebbetoy. A GoFundMe campaign that asked for $10,000 (for grief therapy, among other things) is now five times past that; if you’d like to contribute, here’s the link.

Connecting, inspiring, making memories to make a difference

Connecting, inspiring, making memories to make a difference

TEL AVIV — Yanir Shvartz is 11 years old. He lives in a kibbutz in central Israel, called Nahsonim, that in 2018 had a population of 399. Yanir loves judo. His great hero is Sagi Muki, who in 2019 became the world champion in the men’s under 81-kilogram category.

World champion! An Israeli! 

To say that Yanir loves judo and Sagi Muki would probably be one of the great understatements, and in which order is uncertain, because it is the nature of things that 11-year-old boys and hero-worship tend to go hand in hand. “I like him so much,” Yanir, a little nervous, said. On the sidelines of the 2020 International Judo Federation season-opener here, the 2020 Tel Aviv Grand Prix, in a tent in which a food truck had been set up that was serving hamburgers good enough to have drawn a long, long line, Sagi Muki — himself! — could be found Thursday and Friday with a stack of pictures and a pen, there to sign and talk to all the boys and girls and moms and dads. And, of course, take pictures. Selfies? Sure.

Focus on Moshe Ponte: Israel's driving force in judo

Focus on Moshe Ponte: Israel's driving force in judo

TEL AVIV — In the fall of 2017, the Israeli judo team set out for Abu Dhabi, to take part in the International Judo Federation’s Grand Slam. To get there meant an unexpected and unexplained wait at the airport. The wait stretched to hours. 

Among the Israeli team, no one needed to recite the history of what is what in this part of the world. Everyone knew, and understood. How, though, in such a situation, one naturally filled with any number of anxieties, to keep everyone focused? Calm? Together? 

Moshe Ponte, president of the Israel Judo Association, was having nothing but focus. Concentrate on the competition, he kept saying, and indeed the clearance finally came through, the Israelis were allowed into the United Arab Emirates and, in a memorable scene, Tal Flicker won gold in the men’s under-66 category, singing the Israeli anthem — HaTikvah, or “The Hope” — on the stand even though organizers did not play it.

Recalling it all now, Peter Paltchik, the Israeli standout in the under 100-kilo category who in 2018 would win gold at the Abu Dhabi tour stop, said of Ponte, affectionately, “He is a bulldozer.”

Indeed, the 63-year-old Ponte is one of the leading personalities in world judo.