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≡ THE 5-RING CIRCUS ≡
● Olympic Winter Games 2034: Salt Lake City-Utah ● In an interview with the Deseret News, new SLC-Utah 2034 chief executive Brad Wilson said he may or may not head the organizing committee all the way to the finish line, but is glad to be able to help get it started.
The former Utah House Speaker, Wilson is an unpaid volunteer at present, as the fledgling organizing committee has only two paid staff members at present. He said he was asked by Governor Spencer Cox and Utah Senate leader Stuart Adams if he would be interested in serving and jumped at the chance.
He noted, however, that a search will likely be made for a chief executive for the organizing committee in 2028, with marketing rights and operations responsibilities coming online after the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games are concluded. But he might stay:
“We’ll know more in three years. I think that’s also a time when we’ll decide if the government structure is working the way we hoped it would.
“I recommended for both my benefit and the benefit of the board that as we transition from this phase to the next phase that we pause and let me evaluate whether or not it’s something I want to continue to do and whether or not they think I’m the right person.
“So I’m going to go about doing my job the best I can, and we’ll see. Let’s, three years from now, just take a deep breath and say, ‘Does this still make sense for everybody?’ But I look forward to being involved, and I think there’s a high probability that I’ll stay in this job.”
He added that the state government is more involved now than in 2002 – a different structure is in place – but that the goals have not changed:
“If I’m a state leader, what I want to make sure is that two things happen. One is that we make sure there’s no risk to taxpayers. But we also want to put on the best Games that have ever happened.”
● Archery ● The 2025 World Archery Indoor World Series concluded at the massive Vegas Shoot in Las Vegas, Nevada, with American stars claiming both the men’s and women’s series Recurve titles!
Defending Indoor World Series champ, five-time Olympic medalist – and Paris 2024 runner-up – Brady Ellison faced off with Tokyo 2020 Olympic champ Mete Gazoz (TUR) in the men’s final and was a dominant, 7-1 winner.
France’s Thomas Chirault took the bronze over Florian Unruh (GER), 6-4.
Teammate Casey Kaufhold, 21, who won the Paris Olympic Mixed Team silver with Ellison last summer, was second in the 2024 Indoor World Series, but came out on top this time, but barely. She faced Paris 2024 women’s bronze medalist Lisa Barbelin (FRA) in the final and were tied with two ends each and a tied end after five. That led to shoot-off and they both shot 10, but Kaufhold’s arrow was considered closer to the center, for a 6-5 win.
Denisa Barankova (SVK) took the bronze medal over Chiara Rebagliati (ITA), 6-4.
● Athletics ● Hospitality packages are now available for the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September, with three levels:
● Box Hospitality, with an indoor suite behind a group of seats, which appears to be available only to groups. Pricing is on request.
● Lounge Hospitality, with finish line-area seating, with a lounge area next to the stadium for pre-competition bar service and special guests. These are available singly, at ¥75,000 (~$511 U.S.) or ¥125,000 (~$851 U.S.), depending on the day.
● Ticket+, which adds a limited-edition gift to the general admission ticket, selling for ¥10,000 per ticket (~$68 U.S.).
The Tokyo Worlds are scheduled for 13-21 September, at the National Stadium.
● Ski Jumping ● Norway’s Marius Lindvik won the FIS World Championship in the Normal Hill event at the 2025 Trondheim Worlds that closed Sunday and was second at the end of the Large Hill event on Saturday.
But he and teammate Johann Forfang, a two-time 2018 Olympic Team medal winner, were both disqualified from the Large Hill event from a post-event inspection, due to their ski suits containing prohibited, reinforced threads.
Jan-Erik Aalbu, the ski jumping director of the Norwegian ski federation, told reporters:
“The support system has explained that, on Friday, they chose to put a reinforced thread in the jumpsuit of Forfang and Lindvik. This was done knowing that this is not within the regulations, but with a belief that it would not be discovered by FIS’ equipment controller.
“The way I consider this, we have cheated. We have tried to cheat the system. That is unacceptable.”
The FIS explained the disqualifications came “following an inspection of their jumping suits, which were not in compliance with the equipment rules. The FIS Independent Ethics and Compliance Office is now investigating a suspicion of illegal manipulation of the equipment by the Norwegian team.”
Both athletes wrote on Instagram that they did not know the suits were illegal, with Forfang – fourth after the first round – stating, “a clear line was crossed.
“At the same time, I am relieved to ensure you that Saturday was the first time I jumped with this suit. As athletes we are responsible for ensuring that our suits fit properly. However, I have not had routines in place to check the finer details of the work being done – such as seams. This is a heartbreaking situation not just for me, but everyone who loves our sport.”
● Snowboard ● The Snow League, a snowboard halfpipe series founded by three-time Olympic champ Shaun White (USA), debuted in Aspen, Colorado over the weekend, with Japanese riders taking both the men’s and women’s titles.
The men’s final was an all-Japan affair, with 2021 World Champion Yuko Totsuka facing fellow Olympian and 2025 FIS World Cup champ Ruka Hirano. Totsuka took the victory with two straight wins in the best 2-of-3 format. Beijing 2022 Olympic champ Ayumu Hirano was third for a Japanese medal sweep.
The women’s final had Sena Tomita (JPN), the Olympic bronze winner against American Maddie Mastro, the two-time Worlds medalist and each won a round, setting up a final duel, won by Tomita for the overall win. Korean Ga-on Choi, 16, won the bronze.
The Snow League is purely professional, with each entrant receiving a $5,000 appearance fee and then prize money of $50,000-20,000-10,000-5,000 for the top four finishers and $2,500 for places 5-8. The next event is in December.
● Swimming ● USA Swimming’s 2024 Membership Demographics Report was posted, showing the federation with 376,479 individual members and 2,798 club members across the country.
More than half – 53.4% – are girls and women and 46.6% boys or men, with the average age of member swimmers at 12 1/2 years old.
USA Swimming posted membership totals going back to 1986 – 186,761 back then – and is slowly working back toward its pre-pandemic totals. For 2024, there was a net increase of 0.13% (493) over 2023, but up from the 2020 total of 363,093.
It was noted that post-Olympic years tend to see membership increases, as demonstrated consistently in 2001-2005-2009-2013-2017-2022. The all-time high was in 2017, with 419,427 members in all.
Member distribution is quite evenly balanced across the country, with the Western Zone tops at 25.6% of swimmers, followed by the Southern Zone (24.9%), and the Eastern and Central Zones at 24.7%.
● Table Tennis ● The International Table Tennis Federation announced three qualified candidates will run for the federation presidency on 27 May at the ITTF Annual General Meeting:
● Mohamed El Hacen Ahmed Salem (MTN);
● Khalil El-Mohannadi (QAT), head of the Asian Table Tennis Union and the ITTF First Vice President;
● Petra Sorling (SWE), incumbent ITTF President, elected in 2021.
There are 20 candidates for the ITTF Executive Board, to be elected at the same meeting, including Virginia Sung from the U.S., the chief executive of USA Table Tennis.
● Tennis ● The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) suspended Dominican referee Juan Gabriel Castro for six years and fined him $6,000 for 12 breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program:
“Castro, a national-level official, did not respond to the ITIA’s notice of charge, which related to three matches, in which the official was alleged to have manipulated scoring entry to contrive the scorecard and facilitate corruption.”
He has been provisionally suspended since 7 November 2024, until 6 November 2030.
● Weightlifting ● Trouble for Uzbekistan, as super-heavyweight (+109 kg) star Rustam Djangabaev, the now-disqualified 2018 Worlds bronze medalist, was hit with an eight-year sanction, from 11 March 2024 until 10 March 2032.
He failed an out-of-competition test for Ostarine on 22 February 2024, and had previously served a four-year ban from 2019-23 for Human Growth Hormone, thus the eight-year ban.
Now, the Uzbek federation is in trouble, per the International Testing Agency:
“Given that more than three athletes from the Uzbekistan Weightlifting Federation have committed ADRVs within a 12-month period, this has triggered Article 12.3 of the IWF Anti-Doping Rules. As a result, the matter will be referred to IWF’s Independent Member Federation Sanctioning Panel (IMFSP) to impose appropriate consequences.”
Similarly in hot water is Pakistan, for which the ITA noted sanctions against a coach from 2023 and which also have three adverse findings within 12 months, and could be sanctioned as a federation.
German weightlifter Vicky Schlittig was also sanctioned with four years of ineligibility for the use of the steroid turinabol. She tested positive in November 2021, but was cleared in August 2023 for “no fault or negligence” by the Anti-Doping Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. But an appeal to the full Court of Arbitration for Sport in May 2024 returned a violation and four-year sanction.
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