Historic gold for United Korea: Players cried, the audience was on their feet

A HISTORICAL day for Korean sport. A mixed pair in table tennis – a South Korean player and a North Korean player – won the gold medal, the first gold medal for united Korea after 27 years at the Korean Open held in Daejon.

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Mesut Özil walks away from Germany team citing ‘racism and disrespect’

• Özil attacks DFB president Reinhard Grindel in statement 

• ‘I am German when we win, an immigrant when we lose’

Mesut Özil was part of the Germany team that was eliminated from the World Cup at the group stage in Russia

Reuters (July 22) – Mesut Özil has announced his retirement from international football with immediate effect, the midfielder hitting out at what he perceived to be unfair discrimination surrounding his meeting with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in May.

Bach meets Putin at World Cup Final and claims Russian sport should be brought back into fold

By MICHAEL PAVITT

(July 15) – International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on the success of the FIFA World Cup and claimed it was time to bring “Russian sport fully back into the international sports community” following the Sochi 2014 doping scandal.

Ping-pong diplomacy on show again at ITTF Korea Open

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By JAMES DIAMOND

(July 16) – North and South Korea are to join forces again and compete together at the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Shinhan Korea Open.

I’ve got some things to say

The Player’s Tribune has published a series of first person life stories of footballers competing in the 2018 World Cup in Russia. One of the more compelling is that of ROMELU LUKAKU, the outstanding Belgian striker. Something he says struck a chord, reminiscent of the Canadian media’s attitude towards world class sprinter Ben Johnson in the 1980s. When things were going well for him, we read articles calling him Ben Johnson, the Canadian champion. After he had been incriminated with steroids, they called him Ben Johnson, the immigrant from Jamaica.

Sam Robles | The Players’ Tribune

Fiat workers to strike over Juventus’ $116 million Cristiano Ronaldo purchase?

© REUTERS / Massimo Pinca

It was recently confirmed that Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo is leaving Real Madrid for Juventus ahead of the start of the next season, and while many Italian football fanatics are excited by his entry into the Serie A League, the move has sparked some condemnation.

Who is singing now?

By TONY SEED

(July 11, revised July 19) – The world has been saved from an England-France Brexit final at the 2018 World Cup, renditions of “Three Lions” and “Rule Britannia” in the stadiums, and the tsunami of British chauvinism unashamedly embraced by the Canadian media.

What goes around, comes around. The dodgy English threw their final match in the opening round with Belgium back on June 28 with the pretext of resting players and avoiding injuries for the Round of 16. “Sometimes, you have to make decisions with the bigger picture, and that’s what I did tonight,” rationalized head coach Gareth Southgate at the time – as if the decision was his and his alone. That “bigger picture” seems to have included getting a better draw in the knockout stage, that is, to avoid Brazil and therein build the size of the betting pool, the TV market, the revenues of the English Football Association, and a “hearts and minds” diversion from the Brexit crisis at home – giving a new definition to match fixing and a level playing field. Such are the elastic ethics of England.