Durban Sandshark

FINA took away Kazan's opportunity to host the FINA World 25m Swimming Championships and gave it to Melbourne instead that's now set to occur this December 17-22. Kazan was building a swimming arena just for that! https://www.thestadiumbusiness.com/2022/05/20/melbourne-replaces-kazan-as-host-of-fina-world-swimming-championships-25m/ Adidas severs its ties to the Russian Football Union as its official athletic outfitter that was set to expire later this year in a agreement worth $14.4 million since 2018 in a related story to what I posted on Russian Soccer (actually went on since 2009). Guess this was easy for Adidas to do so. Plus, the German company pulls out all of its Russian-based stores. Nike, incidentally a former kit supplier for the RFU, is doing likewise like with a lot of other foreign companies like McDonald's, H&M, Uniqlo, and Starbucks not wanting to damage its global reputation being associated with Russia. They're making its merchandise unavailable to purchase in Russia. Nike also cancels its Spartak Moscow outfitting deal upon the club forced out of UEFA club competitions: https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/adidas-russia-football-kit-sponsorship-deal-suspended/ https://www.benzinga.com/news/22/03/25916327/adidas-latest-company-to-cut-ties-with-russia-how-soccer-is-changing-up-the-game-during-ukraine-conf https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-03-08/card/adidas-closes-its-stores-in-russia-RdpeOsI4W0n7Q72skdQf https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-spartak-nike-sponsorship-canceled/31846560.html https://fashionunited.uk/news/business/nike-cuts-ties-with-russian-football-team/2022051663098 https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2022/0513/1297810-nike-ends-sponsorship-deal-with-spartak-moscow/ Wonder if Puma pulled out of its partnership by now with the Russian Basketball Federation, fronted by its president and ex-NBA star Andrei Kirilenko? And... The UEFA Champions League match ball in St. Denis' Stade De France shows a redesigned look from it originally had for St. Petersburg in the UEFA Champions League Final supporting peace for Ukraine with the Russian word for peace. But it won't be mass produced for retail consumption instead will be auctioned off with proceeds going to the UNHCR https://news.sportslogos.net/2022/05/24/adidas-unveils-redesigned-match-ball-for-2022-uefa-champions-league-final/soccer/

Further details on FIBA's and FIBA Europe's kicking out of Russia and Belarus in all of the FIBA-sanctioned European basketball competitions at all levels, both national and club in standard and 3x3. Mentions also the replacement teams next in line or reducing the competition fields where applicable, although I do wish Great Britain would've registered for 2022 competitions and participate as a replacement. Could've be an inflection point in British basketball's long-term international development. Was this because of COVID in their case? https://www.fiba.basketball/news/russia-and-belarus-withdrawn-from-fiba-european-national-team-and-club-competitions Good! Teach that misguided, smug, and pompous gymnast Ivan Kuliak a hard, major lesson about that Z. Especially when in a competition with Ukrainians participating and even shaking Ilya Kotvun's hand at the medal podium wearing that horrifying Z. Disgusting! Maybe FIG can get Svetlana Khorkina suffer the same: https://au.sports.yahoo.com/gymnastics-2022-russian-ivan-kuliak-cops-one-year-ban-015004504.html ATP and WTA will not award points from Wimbeldon this due to the All-England Tennis Club unilaterally banning Russian and Belarussian tennis players, rendering it as an exhibition and drew immediate condemnation from the WTA and ATP, more than a month away from Wimbeldon's start. Be interesting in how all this will unfold and effects the relationships of involved when it perhaps undermines the integrity of the rankings, the tennis players' equal opportunities, and equity among those three parties: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-sports-belarus-mens-tennis-4bc8619e87a5cc1cdfa4d5eaac9fef67

What those articles that I last posted regarding the Russian women's national soccer team's suspension don't mention is that, along with Portugal now bound for EURO Women 2022 in England, Denmark clinches UEFA Group E and direct qualification to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand for the first time since 2007 in China with 21 points as no other team can catch them at this point. The Russian women had a 11-3 goal differential with easy shutout wins over Montenegro (5-0), Malta (3-0), Bosnia-Herzegovina (5-0), and Azerbaijan (2-0) and a later loss to Denmark (3-1) now nullified with upcoming games with those same group opponents cancelled. BIH now claims second in its group at 10 points with a chance for to be the runners-up advancing to the European play-offs first round if they are one of the other six runners-up among all nine groups (not counting results against the sixth-placed team). Just yesterday, FIBA announces Puerto Rico will replace Russia at the upcoming 2022 FIBA Women's Basketball Championship in Sydney. Both ended up playing their game together in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where all of Russia's matches had to be played for FIBA qualification instead of Washington, DC due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, with the Russian women blowing the Puerto Ricans out. Also, FIBA Executive Committee goes quick on its further suspensions on not just Russia but also Belarus by kicking both the RBF and BBF out from the 2023 FIBA World Basketball Championship and its qualifiers like Group H for Russia and Group B for Belarus, the U17 Women's World Basketball Championship, any FIBA Official Basketball Competitions planned to be held in Russia or Belarus until further notice, FIBA 3x3 World Cup 2022, FIBA 3x3 U23 Nations League 2022, FIBA 3x3 Europe Cup (Qualifiers) 2022, FIBA 3x3 U17 Europe Cup Qualifiers 2022, and FIBA 3x3 U18 World Cup 2022. And no Russian and Belarussian 3x3 teams and cities can either participate or host the FIBA 3X3 World Tour, 3X3 Challengers, and 3x3 Women's Series: https://www.fiba.basketball/news/fiba-decisions-on-russia-and-belarus-for-upcoming-competitions

Over in Britain, BBC's Tokyo 2020 coverage rightfully and deservedly won Best Titles and Graphic Identity for its brilliant intro to its daily coverage at the 2022 British Academy Television Craft Awards on April 24 specifically for Ron Chakraborty, James Cross, Factory Fifteen, Tim Jones, Kenji Kawai, and Fantasista Utamaro. BBC's Tokyo 2020 Olympics, credited to BBC Sport/BBC One here, is currently up for Best Sport at the upcoming British Academy Television Awards set for May 8 hosted by Richard Ayoade. It's the only nomination for it here as there aren't many specific sports-themed categories there unlike in the USA or Canada. If there's any Australian Logie noms to Seven's Tokyo 2020 coverage that are announced or anywhere else, I'll pass them on to you

Hey look! There's Super Mario Lemieux shilling for Snickers Canada while enjoying practice and the candy bar that "will always be on my team" post-practice in a 1989 Canadian commercial that apparently didn't run in the USA despite his emerging superstar status and set to win Stanley Cups and 2002 Olympic gold in Salt Lake City with a friendly rivalry with the Great One to boot. I always enjoy some Snickers all the time, man. His English improved greatly by the time this was filmed since the Pittsburgh Penguins (note the non-trademarked nod to its colors here) drafted #66 in 1984 and can publicly speak with confidence. You'll notice in the fine print that Snickers was under the Effim Foods Ltd. banner at the time and not M&M/Mars like here Stateside, a subtle clue that this was on Canadian TV here, but still had the mouth-watering "packed" display of multitude of "crunchy peanuts, peanut butter nougat, creamy caramel, and rich milk chocolate". Very much presented like those 1980s Snickers commercials back then. Hope to get for you that Campbell's Chunky Soup commercial Mario did more recently soon.

Really don't expect the Russian Volleyball Federation (VFR) will be successful with the Court of Arbitration in Sport in seeking $80 million damages for being stripped of the 2022 Men's World Volleyball Championship. Likely ruled against them by the time you read this despite as of this writing CAS not acquiring the VFR appeal. https://www.insider.com/russia-seeking-80-million-for-losing-volleyball-world-championship-2022-4

Hard to believe it's now 30 years since this. Seven Network Australia's TV promo for its then-upcoming Barcelona 1992 broadcasting coverage that went around 22 hours a day, if I recall correctly, as it positioned itself in becoming "Australia's Olympic Network" for almost entirely its forseeable future to this day. This was Seven's first Summer Olympics broadcast since Moscow 1980 after Ten had the previous 1984 and 1988 summer versions before undergoing dismal ratings, a stock market crash-inspired financial difficulties, and an infamous receivership in 1990 as 10 TV Australia and could do no longer until Sochi 2014 when it comes to the Olympics. Anyway to the promo, the presentation is not too unlike what Ten did for Seoul 1988: profiling its sportscasting commentary team. But with this one, as opposed to headshots, we see Seven's team posing with some of Australia's Barcelona 1992 Olympic hopefuls happily posing in a group photo in front of a massive Australia flag. I wish I could instantly recognize many of the Australian Olympians and 7 Sport's commentators here. But I see marathon runner Steve Moneghetti, gold medal-winning swimmer Duncan Armstrong, and a young Cathy Freeman and Susie O'Neill (?) dressing casually while I can recognize Bruce McAvaney, Melbourne Tigers basketball coach Lindsay Gaze (father to Aussie Boomers hoops legend Andrew, who would play in Barcelona and would later do Seven's basketball commentary), Sandy Roberts, Garry Wilkinson, Craig Williams, David Christison, and Pat Welsh in their business wear. A coverage marked by Play Ons and fillers with Barcelona's sights and the Oarsome Foursome and Kieran Perkins and Kathy Watt as McAvaney fronted its coverage while taking care of track and field. Interestingly, both McAvaney and Roberts were both with Ten during that network's Summer Olympics' coverages during the 1980s before moving on to Seven. If we can get the list of the Seven commentators, that'll be great. All this was coming at a time when Australia was fast-rising and excelling as more of an all-around Olympic force in winning multiple gold medals with the legacy of the AIS bearing fruit. Not to mention being indeed miles ahead from what Seven offered back in 1980 with less than 90 hours and more wall-to-wall coverage this time under the theme song "There is Nothing Greater".

Again not shocking at all. UEFA really hitting Russian soccer even further in their punishment's extension following removing St. Petersburg's Zenit Stadium from hosting this year's UEFA Champions League Final. Russia's entire national soccer teams' programs at all levels and all of its pro clubs, male and female, are banned or suspended from the Champions League, Europa League, and Europa Conference League next season and all other UEFA competition until further notice with Scotland's Celtic and the Rangers duking it out in place of Zenit at the group stage. Spartak Moscow got ejected from Europa League's knockout rounds. The Russian women, already qualified for next year's Euro 2022 Women in England starting July 6, will not participate and got removed from that with Portugal, a team Russia defeated in the qualifying playoffs, replacing Russia in Group C with The Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. That, and now being prohibited from the Australia-New Zealand 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification. Many nations' soccer federations worldwide are all on record in not wanting to compete against a Russian soccer team. So no seeing Nadya Bykova in action. Also, Russia's 2028 and 2032 Euro Championship hosting bids were removed, and the CAS rejected an appeal on the FIFA ban on the Football Union of Russia so Russia, with two wins away to join the field, could continue on its Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifying endeavor: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/05/02/uefa-ban-russia-european-championship-world-cup/ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/sports/soccer/russia-ban-euros-world-cup.html

First post about Tokyo 2020 Olympic broadcasting posted this year--and we're almost halfway home with 2022--on this thread. Still planning to get back on bringing more details that we missed. But a more recent development I can inform is that back in early April was the American 43rd Sports Emmy nominees were announced on April 6 with the winners announced May 24. The NBC family of networks' coverage of the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo garnered 10 nominations. Half of the total 20 nominations for NBC. Telemundo and Peacock were repped each out of its 6 and 5 in total, respectively. The Tokyo 2020 coverage earned noms in Outstanding Live Sports Special, Outstanding Live Studio Show in Spanish, Outstanding Interactive Experience - Event Coverage, Outstanding Promotional Announcement, Outstanding Technical Team Event, Outstanding Technical Team Studio, Outstanding Camera Work - Short Form, Outstanding Editing - Short Form, Outstanding Graphic Design - Event/Show, and The George Wensel Technical Achievement Award. NBC's personalities that were involved in the Games in Tokyo that got nominated, though not necessarily for Tokyo 2020 are Mike Tirico (Outstanding Sports Personality/Studio Host), Michelle Tafoya (Outstanding Sports Personality/Sports Reporter), and Telemundo's Andreas Cantor, Ana Jurka, and Miguel Gurwitz (Outstanding On-Air Personality in Spanish). Surely, NBC will win plenty of the Sports Emmys tech categories if not exactly dominate or sweep them. I'm no oddsmaker guy, but I could suspect Telemundo's trio could cannibalize their votes in their category and maybe favor TUDN/Univision to win or ESPN Deportes' Cristina Alexander. Not sure if it's a shock at all regarding Peacock's lack of noms for their portion of the Games of The XXXII Olympiad in the digital categories. Maybe the Sports Emmy should expand to include streaming-related sports categories. And there were other Olympic/Paralympic-related Sports Emmy nominations involving Olympians too, so let's give them their mention: LFG (for Let's F***ing Go on the USWNT soccer team and their fight for equal pay, Outstanding Long Documentary) on HBO/HBO Max, Facebook Watch's Simone vs. Herself (Outstanding Documentary Series - Serialized), Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel: "Oksana: The Remarkable Story of Paralympic Superstar Oksana Masters" also on HBO/HBO Max, #StrongerTogether: "What Agnes Saw" at Olympics.com for Outstanding Public Service Announcement/Campaign, Telemundo's Nos Vemos en el Podio and ESPN Deportes' Último Tren a Tokio and En Sus Zapatos: "Alexa Moreno" (profile on the Mexican gymnast who came oh so close to winning the first Latin American Olympic gymnastics medal on the women's vault in Tokyo) were all in for the Outstanding Feature Story in Spanish category. Meanwhile north of the border in Toronto on April 10, the Canadian Screen Awards did their thing with the sports categories. CBC's coverage of Tokyo 2020 had, if I got this correct, 10 Canadian Screen Award nominations (2 in Sports analysis or commentary, 2 in Sports play-by-play, Sports feature segment, 2 in Sports Host, Sports opening, Sports program or series, and Live Production, Social Media) but end up winning only 1 with CBC Olympic Morning Host Andi Petrillo walking away with the Sports Host win in beating out CBC Olympic Primetime host Scott Russell, stopping a shutout. Shockingly IMO, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on CBC wasn't even nominated for Live Sporting Event Coverage, Sports Directing, editing, graphics, tech, production, or any Audience Award. Also no specific Quebecois sports categories exist here, so no Radio-Canada/RDS here.

About freakin' time! We waited almost a year for the IOC/OBS to upload the official world broadcast feed version to be available--with some of the full events already posted by now and much quicker after its conclusion. Why the delay? Beijing has its own OC uploaded right afterwards this February by the IOC/OBS. To me, this is a sadder, more restrictive, and more somber one and will be remembered for obvious reasons and context with a particular Japan context. Makes you wonder if there wasn't a pandemic, this would obviously be a lot more lively with the pro-Japan crowd participation inside the National Stadium (and less formal than in 1964). On another note, it's much too bad we don't have the full Moscow 1980 Opening Ceremony on YouTube anymore with the full 81-nation parade of nations taken from Soviet TV (TB CCCP). Not to mention the opening looks of Moscow starting with the Soviet flag flying in the wind before cutting to Lenin Stadium at the start and then to Moscow City Hall with the tail end of the torch relay with those group of synchrunners that we already saw on the Australian (Seven Network) and Brazilian (TV Cultura) broadcasts uploaded on YouTube. Saw the IOC version on its website recently but it omits much of that, if I recall. Wish the full version stayed on and I would've liked to download and burn on my Blu-Rays.

That, and the fact St. Petersburg has a new 23,000-seat arena currently under construction planned for a next May opening for SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL as its primary tenant along with the 2023 IIHF WC to showcase the new arena. This arena would easily make it among the largest in all of Europe

Surprising nobody here. Even more insulting to Putin since this involves his hometown. Just adding things on... IIHF Strips Russia From Hosting the 2023 IIHF World Ice Hockey Championships In St. Petersburg Latvia replaces Russia in the 2022 IIHF World Junior Ice Hockey Championship restart in August. All solely in Edmonton this time from the cancelled version with fellow Alberta city Red Deer. So no marvellous Matvei Michkov again: https://www.iihf.com/en/news/32501/tournament_updates Also the Helsinki portion of the upcoming World Ice Hockey Championship this May will instead be played at the older 8200-seat Helsinki Ice Hall being moved from the 13,349-seat Hartwall Arena/Helsinki Hall since Hartwall is actually owned and controlled by sanctioned Russian oligarchs associated with Putin--Arena Events Oy, a company of Gennadi Timtshenko and Roman Rotenberg since 2013. The sanctioned Russians own less than half of the arena's shares, but have a majority of the arena's control: https://www.is.fi/jaakiekko/art-2000008682837.html

Finnish media outlet Iltalehti reports that the IIHF will announce that both France and Austria replace the suspended/expelled Russia and Belarus for the upcoming IIHF World Championship, scheduled for Helsinki's Hartwell Arena and Tampere's new Nokia Arena: https://chasingthepuck.com/report-austria-and-france-to-replace-belarus-and-russia-at-world-championships/ https://www.iltalehti.fi/jaakiekko/a/33f144c5-e382-43b0-b16a-1c399ca7e179

FIBA suspends Russia (Russian Basketball Union) and "its national teams and officials--including delegates, supervisors, referees, etc.--at all levels will not be allowed to participate in FIBA Basketball and 3x3 Basketball competitions until further notice." This means the Russian women will not participate in the upcoming World Women's Basketball Championship in Sydney and the men are kicked out of the FIBA European Basketball Qualifications, among other things. Even took away its opportunity to host the 2025 Eurobasket as a candidate and excluded Russian teams from FIBA Europe club comps--both men and women. Ukrainian teams meanwhile will no longer be able to play in the Ukraine but will still and must compete within Europe: https://www.fiba.basketball/news/fiba-europe-executive-committee-takes-important-decisions-following-events-in-ukraine https://www.fiba.basketball/news/fiba-statement-on-russian-teams-and-officials EuroLeague Basketball suspends its three Russian-based basketball teams (CSKA Moscow, UNICS Kazan, Zenit St Petersburg) and the 7DAYS EuroCup (Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar) from its schedule until further notice. The ELPA strongly supports this: https://www.eurohoops.net/en/euroleague/1314617/euroleague-suspends-the-games-of-russian-teams/

You can read the 2016 press release for Miracle In Sochi from Bell Media here that includes a RDS-produced roundtable discussion companion show TABLE D'HÔTE on RDS INFO featuring French-Canadian women's hockey personalities Marie-Philip Poulin, Caroline Ouellette, France St-Louis, and Danièle Sauvageau accompanied by Claudine Douville discussing Canadian women's hockey with Miracle In Sochi aired there: https://www.bellmedia.ca/fr/salle-de-presse/presse/compter-du-8-fevrier-rds-info-offre-une-premiere-fenetre-de-diffusion-aux-emissions-25-ans-demotions-et-table-dhote/ The American side for Miracle In Sochi is represented by star player Hillary Knight, likely the only one from the USA willing to speak for this. Yes, Marie-Philip Poulin always comes clutch in big games like this An oral history to that Sochi 2014 women's hockey gold medal game that ended with Poulin scoring the golden goal can be read here: https://www.habseyesontheprize.com/womens-hockey/2016/2/21/11081576/sochi-olympics-2014-womens-hockey-gold-medal-game-marie-philip-poulin-the-post