Russian skater Kamila Valieva was still allowed to compete despite testing positive for a banned substance before the Olympic games. She was a heavy favorite for the gold – but ended up coming in fourth place yesterday.
What does this say about the integrity of the Olympic games — and what does it mean for the future of figure skating?
Plus, smart headlights coming to U.S. cars could make American roads safer.
And, how the pandemic is giving us economic lessons in real time.
Guests: The Washington Post’s figure skating analyst Robert Samuels and Axios’ Joann Muller and Emily Peck.
Beijing will become the first city to have staged both a summer and winter Games, having already hosted a successful summer Olympics in 2008. China is already getting ready for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Justin Downes, a Canadian winter sports specialist has been advising games organizers. “There is no question that Beijing will be ready as all the competition venues are ready for the Games and they have already hosted test events.” Some organisations are calling on governments to boycott Beijing 2022 because of reported human rights abuses in the country.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report on climate change this morning. It shows that warming is happening more quickly than we realized, and calls the connection between human activity and global warming “unequivocal.” It’s the strongest stance by global scientists on climate we’ve seen yet.
Plus, the pandemic has changed our relationship with trash.
And, Ina Fried’s big takeaways from covering the Olympic games.
Guests: Axios’ Andrew Freedman, Hope King, and Ina Fried.
We get the latest from Myanmar with Asean under pressure to name an envoy to the country. Plus: we ask why Franco-UK relations are so poor and discuss official Olympic recognition for Kosovo.
Becoming an Olympic swimmer is an aspiration for thousands of young athletes in the U.S. But it comes at a heavy cost. Club dues alone can set swimmers back thousands of dollars each year. Here’s a breakdown of what it can cost to become an Olympic swimmer.
We discuss what’s on the agendaas US secretary of state Antony Blinken arrives in India. We then get the lowdown on Russia’s recent talks with the Taliban and assess the Kremlin’s intentions in the region.
In 2018, the Rio games were estimated to have a total cost of $20 billion, far beyond the Rio organizing committee’s initial estimate of $2.8 billion. The city of Rio shelled out $8.2 billion on legacy builds, or builds intended to live well beyond the Olympic’s three-week life-cycle. Cities incurring overrun costs when hosting the Olympics is not just unique to just Rio; according to the Council on Foreign Relations, since 1960, every Olympics saw high overrun costs. As overrun costs become a growing concern, several cities withdrew their 2022 winter Olympic bids in 2014, citing the potential costs. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) enacted the Olympic Agenda 2020 in 2014; the agenda provided new regulations specifically to mitigate cost concerns. However, the IOC was faced with another challenge: hosting the Tokyo Olympics amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Tokyo Olympics are due to begin in just over two months. But with coronavirus cases climbing in recent months, 80% of Japanese people want the games to be cancelled.
The navigation signals sent by satellites like America’s GPS constellation are surprisingly weak. What happens when they’re jammed—or tricked? And in America cicadas have emerged from their underground redoubts for the first time in 17 years, for a frenzied few weeks of mating. How do you study a species that emerges fewer than six times in a century?
It is less than 200 days until the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics are due to get under way, but among the Japanese public, fears over the virus and the spiralling cost of the Games mean most would rather see the event postponed or cancelled altogether.
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