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Tokyo Games attendance
A maximum of up to 10,000 spectators from Japan will be permitted to attend events at the Tokyo Olympic Games after organisers confirmed the caps. This means that building capacity is set for 50 per cent or up to 10,000 fans.
However, organisers warned that more restrictions could be placed on the attendance numbers if there changes in infection rates due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the Olympics could still take place without fans.
International spectators have already been barred from attending the Games, set to open on July 23.
Neil Gourley out
British Middle distance runner Neil Gourley will miss the Olympics after testing positive at the European Indoor Championships.
Gourley made the final of the men’s 1500m event at the 2019 Doha World Athletics Championships, also has a calf injury.
He will miss this weekend’s British Trials in Manchester, UK, which start Friday.
Gourley was also just outside the 3:35.00 Tokyo Olympic standard with his 3:35.79 performance in Toruń, Poland in February. It was unlikely he would have made the team anyway, as there are half a dozen British runners under the benchmark.
Shubenkov cleared in genuinely exceptional case
Russia’s former world 110m hurdles champion Sergey Shubenkov has been cleared of wrongdoing after an adverse finding reported in December.
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) found that he apparently bore no fault or negligence for an anti-doping rule violation which came from an out-of-competition test sample from December.
“The sample was found to contain a low concentration of the specified substance known as acetazolamide (a diuretic),” the AIU said.
“After a thorough investigation of the athlete’s explanation during the results management process, the AIU accepted that the positive finding resulted from his unintentional ingestion of residue from the medication being used to treat a family member.
Sounds like hogwash of the burrito variety, but not all Russian can be found guilty all of the time, can they?
Shubenkov owns the national record of 12.92. He is a four-time World Athletics Championships medallist and a nine-time Diamond League winner.
