🌏 Memes And Sportsmanship At The Olympics

Happy Friday! Here’s your weekly email to help you stay updated and make sense of important stories happening around the world including:

• 🥇 Your Rundown of This Week’s Olympic News
• 🌏 This Week’s Top Stories
• 👩 Women To Know
• 🙌 Good News For Your Weekend

The Olympic spirit shines as athletes brought joy around the world through their displays of sportsmanship and hilarity.

In a moment that moved audiences around the world, Qatar’s Mutaz-Essa Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi decided to share the Olympic gold medal in high jump at the Tokyo 2020 Games.

• Barshim, 30, and Tamberi, 29, both recorded clearances of 2.37 meters (7.78 feet) on Sunday Aug 1st but were both unsuccessful at clearing the 2.39 meter (7.84 feet) mark after three tries each.
• An Olympic official then offered them a “jump-off” as a tiebreaker. Instead, Barshim asked the official: “Can we have two golds?” As the official nodded, the two men clasped hands, whooping and crying tears of joy as they celebrated on the track.
• “I look at him, he looks at me, and we know it. We just look at each other and we know, that is it, it is done. There is no need,” Barshim, the current indoor World Champion, said. “He is one of my best friends, not only on the track, but outside the track. We work together. This is a dream come true. It is the true spirit, the sportsman spirit, and we are here delivering this message.”
• “I still can’t believe it happened,” Tamberi, the 2016 indoor World champion said. “Sharing with a friend is even more beautiful... It was just magical.”

Elsewhere at the Olympics

• 🇨🇦 Canadian swimmer Maggie Mac Neil instantly became a relatable meme when she didn’t realize she had won her race because she wasn’t wearing her glasses.
• 🇦🇺 Australian canoeist Jess Fox shared an ingenious repair for her kayak after it was damaged ahead of the canoe slalom K1 finals at the Olympics – using a condom issued by the Olympics. She went on to win a bronze.

Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has been granted asylum in Poland after she was taken to an airport against her wishes by team officials to board a flight back home for complaining about the country’s coaches in an Instagram video.

• The 24-year-old, who was due to compete in the women’s 200-meter sprint on Monday Aug. 1, posted a video on her Instagram complaining that the coach had signed her up for the 4x400m relay that she had not trained for,t after some teammates were found to be ineligible.
• On Sunday Aug. 4, ahead of her race the next day, she was taken to Tokyo’s Haneda airport by team officials. She refused to board the plane and requested police protection from the Japanese police at the airport, posting a video calling on the International Olympic Committee for help, according to the Guardian.
• She and her husband were later granted a humanitarian visa from Poland, and she flew to Vienna, Austria, on Wednesday Aug. 4.
• Tsimanouskaya had been expected to fly directly to Warsaw, Poland, but a Polish government official told Reuters that her itinerary was switched last minute as security precaution. In May, the Belarus government intercepted a passenger plane carrying prominent opposition journalist Roman Protasevich and forced it to land in Minsk, where authorities then arrested Protasevich, sparking international outrage.

Also happening in Belarus

• 🇧🇾  Vitaly Shishov, an exiled Belarusian opposition activist, has been found dead, hanging from a tree in a park near his home in Kiev, Ukraine, after he went missing when he went out for a morning jog.

Dutch sprinter Sifan Hassan fell on the final lap of her Olympic race but got up and still managed to place first in her heat at the Tokyo Games on Sunday Aug. 1.

• As the bell sounded for the final lap, Hassan – the current world record holder for the women’s 5k road race and the one mile – tripped over Kenyan runner Edinah Jebitok, who fell after a chain-reaction of near-trips that happened from the middle of the pack.
• Hassan, 28, was able to quickly pick herself back up and blitz through the remaining 300 meters. She went from being 13th out of 15 runners to first place, securing a spot for the semi-finals.
• She went on to win gold in the 5,000 meter final the next day.

More Badass Women You Should Know About

• 🇺🇿 46-year-old Uzbekistan gymnast Oksana Chusovitina competed in her record 8th and final Olympic Games and received a standing ovation.

British diver Tom Daley was spotted knitting while watching the women’s 3 meter springboard final at the Tokyo Olympics, and people loved it.

• The diver, who won gold alongside teammate Matty Lee in the men’s synchronized 10 meter diving event on Monday July 26, is an avid knitter and has an Instagram account, @madewithlovebytomdaley, dedicated to his yarn creations, which has more than 560,000 followers.
• After his medal win last week, Daley posted a video on the account saying that “the one thing that has kept me sane throughout this whole process is my love for knitting and crochet and all things stitching.”
• He also shared a little pouch he knitted for his gold medal to stop it from being scratched. The pouch has the British Union Jack on one side and the Japanese flag on the other side.

More Good News For Your Weekend

• 🇸🇸 Rose Nathike, Anjelina Nadai Lohalith and Paulo Amotun, three refugee runners from South Sudan, are bringing hope back home during the Tokyo Olympics.

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