The Fiji Times

Swimming-Hafnaoui stuns in 400 free, gold for Japan’s Ohashi

Tunisia’s Ahmed Hafnaoui pulled off a major shock on the opening day of the Tokyo Olympics swimming medal events on Sunday with a stunning victory in the men’s 400m freestyle while the hosts celebrated a surprise gold for Yui Ohashi in the women’s 400m medley. Chase Kalisz powered to victory in the men’s 400m medley...

Stuck, Warriors forced to stay in Australia after NRL season ends

Warriors players and their families will be forced to stay in Australia for at least a week after their last game of the season. The New Zealand government’s announcement on Friday that there would be an eight-week pause to the trans-Tasman travel bubble meant that people won’t be allowed to travel from Australia to New...

NRL: Sonny Bill Williams vows to help Bulldogs-bound SBW fan Tevita Pangai Jr

New Zealand rugby codes superstar Sonny Bill Williams has vowed to help NRL enforcer Tevita Pangai Jr become a success at his old Bulldogs club. Pangai Jr is leaving the Broncos to join the Bulldogs on a three-year contract next season after seeing out the rest of this season on loan to the Penrith Panthers....

Players wanted to play Rugby League World Cup, claims Australia captain Daly Cherry-Evans

Players’ union general president Daly Cherry-Evans claims there would have been a stand-off with the ARL Commission had players been consulted on Australia’s Rugby League World Cup withdrawal. The fallout from the exits of the Kangaroos and Kiwis due to safety and welfare concerns during the pandemic will continue on Monday night, with a meeting...

Injury-hit Warriors limp to loss

The injury curse struck again for the Warriors while South Sydney showed no mercy, romping to a 60-22 NRL win at Sunshine Coast Stadium on Saturday. The injury curse struck again for the Warriors while South Sydney showed no mercy, romping to a 60-22 NRL win at Sunshine Coast Stadium on Saturday. The Rabbitohs (15-3...

Football Ferns fade against world champions

The Football Ferns were defeated 6-1 by reigning world champions USA in their second group game of the Tokyo Olympics. The USA, having lost their opening game 3-0 against Sweden, were ruthless in Saitama Stadium, as they fought to reignite their Olympic campaign. Lindsay Horan, Rose Lavelle, Alex Morgan and Christen Press each scored a...

Springboks v British and Irish Lions: Warren Gatland’s Lions win first test in Cape Town

Warren Gatland’s British and Irish Lions shrugged off a shoddy first half to overcome world champion South Africa 22-17 in their tense first test of three at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday. The Lions responded to trailing 12-3 at halftime with a bolder, disciplined and tactically superior second half. What also came to fruition was...

Archery-U.S. pair ousted in surprise loss to Indonesia

TOKYO, July 24 (Reuters) – The United States suffered a surprise loss to Indonesia in the mixed-team archery competition on Saturday, dashing the 8th-ranked pair’s medal hopes. Indonesian pair Diananda Choirunisa and Riau Salsabilla, ranked 36th in the world leading into the event, now go on to the next round to face Turkey in a...

Olympics Gymnastics- For medals, U.S. women face biggest opponents – each other

Mykayla Skinner finally made the U.S. women’s Olympics 2020 gymnastics team after being left off the Rio 2016 squad. The 24-year-old Arizonan’s vault is good enough to land her on the podium alongside teammate Simone Biles, but she might not get the chance to try. What happens in the qualification round on Sunday will decide...

Glittering gold distracts from Tokyo woes

Sport stretched out over Tokyo on Saturday as the Olympic Games finally got underway, but the shadow of COVID-19 and controversy was never far away on the opening day. China fired an ominous warning as Yang Qian grabbed the Games’ first gold, the morning after Japan’s global superstar tennis player Naomi Osaka had lit the...

Fijiana told to stay positive, enjoy game

The Team Fiji women’s rugby 7s side plans to showcase its Fijian fl air during the Tokyo Olympic Games. As part of the training program, the Saiasi Fuli coached team has been focusing on keeping the ball alive to apply pressure on the opposition. According to Fuli, the players have been advised to remain positive and enjoy their game. “It was all part of...

Dan poses threat to Fijians

GREAT Britain led by World Rugby Sevens Series all-time leading point’s scorer Dan Norton will provide the third challenge for Fiji in a space of a day and a half during the pool stage at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Fiji’s first challenge is playing Japan in the opening match at nine o’clock (Fiji Time 12pm) at the Tokyo Stadium on July...

Fiji athletes urged to stay focused

TEAM Fiji athletes have been urged to overcome the thought and effect of COVID-19 while preparing for their events in the Olympic Games in Japan. Chef de mission Patrick Bower reminded the athletes on the importance of giving their best at the Games for themselves and for the country. “Stay focused,” Bower told the athletes during their assembly at the...

‘A win for Oceania’

The Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC) has congratulated the city of Brisbane, the Queensland government, the government of Australia, and the Australian Olympic Commit- tee (AOC) for winning the bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games, the 33rd Olympiad. In a press statement, ONOC president and re-elected Inter- national Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board member Dr Robin Mitchell said Brisbane 2032 is a great win...

John Mitchell quits England role to leave Eddie Jones without a right-hand man

Eddie Jones has lost another key aide in his England coaching team after his right-hand man John Mitchell agreed to join Premiership club side Wasps for next season. Only in February, New Zealander Mitchell had signed a new contract taking him through to the 2023 World Cup as defence coach, but the former All Blacks...

Can we accomplish the same feat in Tokyo

As we countdown days and hours for the men’s sevens rugby competition in the Olympics, there has been only one question in the minds of all rugby lov- ing fans, can we repeat the same feat as in Rio. In this COVID-19 ravaged world, the Olympics, which was supposed to be held last year, was deferred to this year with organisers under heavy...

Dual-threat enforcers offer ray of light in another tough season for Warriors

As the injury-hit Warriors attempt to snap a six-match losing streak on Saturday against South Sydney, if there’s one thing that can boost belief it’s the form of their new-look front-row. In just two games since Matt Lodge made the move from Brisbane, he and fellow enforcer Addin Fonua-Blake have already showed the makings of...

Down memory lane

In 2016, our first Olympic Games gold medal provided a fairytale ending. Our boys stepped onto the podium to receive their gold medals from Princess Anne as tears flowed freely. The noise was deafening as Fijians took to the streets to express their excitement. The nation was at a halt, everything stopped as celebrations went wild. That moment is hard to de- scribe and put...

NZ rugby league boss hits back at criticism of withdrawal from World Cup

New Zealand rugby league chief executive Greg Peters says comments describing New Zealand and Australia’s decision to pull out of this year’s World Cup as “selfish and cowardly” are “ill-informed and misguided”. England’s Rugby Football League (RFL) chairman Simon Johnson made the remarks as he slammed the trans-Tasman neighbours for withdrawing from the tournament, set...

Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup in doubt

The All Blacks’ Bledisloe Cup and Rugby Championship tests have been plunged into doubt after the government paused the quarantine-free travel bubble with Australia for eight weeks. The All Blacks are due to play three Bledisloe tests against Australia in Auckland on 7 August, Perth two weeks later, and in Wellington on 28 August. New...

Olympics ceremony: Naomi Osaka lights flame as Tokyo’s ‘games of hope’ open

Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka has lit the Olympic cauldron to mark the formal start of Tokyo 2020, in an opening ceremony shorn of glitz and overshadowed by a pandemic but celebrated as a moment of global hope. Organisers also paid tribute to medical workers as athletes from across the world paraded into an almost...

Focus on task at hand, says Bower

Do your best and remain focused on the task at hand. That was Team Fiji Olympic Games chef de mission Patrick Bower’s message to athletes as they began final preparations for the start of competition next week. He urged them to set aside thoughts and emotions about the COVID-19 crisis at home and play their...

Olympics Scandal-hit Tokyo looks to final torchbearer to mend battered image

Battered by scandal on the eve of the opening ceremony, Tokyo 2020 organisers have the chance to patch up the Games’ image when they reveal today who will carry the Olympic flame for the final few steps to light the stadium’s cauldron. The identity of the final torchbearer is one of the Games’ most closely...

Sporting moments to look out for at Tokyo 2020

Superheroes the world over come head to toe in spandex. So too here in Tokyo, where the one person with the best shot at making – or even saving – these most beleaguered of Olympic Games, will be dressed in a red one-piece. Never mind that Simone Biles stands 1.42m in her stockinged feet, the...

Surfing-The hard work starts here, says ISA president

Surfing’s proud Olympic debut on Sunday will be the result of a decades-long struggle for acceptance by the sport’s governing body, but its president Fernando Aguerre has told Reuters the hard work is really only beginning. First elected to the top job in the International Surfing Association (ISA) in 1994, Aguerre is delighted to see...

ON-Tennis at the Tokyo Olympics

Focus on tennis at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics: THE ABSOLUTE BASICS * There are five events in total – singles and doubles tournaments for both men and women, and a mixed doubles competition. * Each event follows an elimination format similar to most major tennis tournaments. Losers of the semi-finals play for the bronze medal....

WTA roundup: Katarzyna Kawa keeps Polish hope alive in Gdynia

Katarzyna Kawa kept a home-soil run alive when she upset No. 3 seed Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania 6-2, 6-4 in the second round Thursday at the BNP Paribas Poland Open in Gdynia. Kawa, ranked No. 143 in the world, had little trouble as she converted five of nine break points and won 64 percent of...

Three more athletes test postive for COVID-19 at Games

TOKYO, July 23 (Reuters) – Olympics organisers said on Friday that three more competitors at the Tokyo Games, including one resident of the athletes’ village, had tested positive for COVID-19. Olympics-related cases rose by 19, organisers said, bringing the total number of disclosed cases to 106.

COVID-19 outbreaks among non-vaccinated players could mean forfeits

The National Football League informed its teams on Thursday that COVID-19 outbreaks among non-vaccinated players during the 2021 season could lead to forfeits and loss of pay if games cannot be rescheduled. According to a memo sent by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the league has no plans to add a 19th week to the regular...

Sport

Skateboarding-Huston, Horigome advance to finals in skateboarding’s debut