Wang Tianyi, Wang Yuefei and Yan Chenglong
It has been something of an annus horribilis for Xiangqi, the ancient sport known in the West as Chinese chess. His problems started a year ago, the same day last year Anti-stain shortlist was released, when Yan Chenglong won the National Chinese Chess King tournament and went to his hotel room with some friends to celebrate.
As a result of what happened in the following hours, he was to be stripped of his title, with the Chinese Xiangqi Association announces results of their investigation on Christmas Day.
“Yan consumed alcohol with other people in his room on the night of the 17th,” they wrote in a statement, “then he defecated in the bathtub of the room he was staying in on the 18th, which who damaged hotel property.” violated public order and morals, had a negative impact on the competition and the Xiangqi event, and was of very bad morals.
On the plus side, they had found no evidence to support internet-based theories that Yan had cheated during the event itself by using a hidden communications device. “Based on our understanding of the situation,” they wrote, “it is currently impossible to prove that Yan cheated via ‘anal beads’.”
Yan later explained that for him it was more like anus horribilis: he suffered from diarrhea, had been forced to decorate the bath after failing to reach the toilet, and had intended to clean but was left to take a plane instead.
Surprisingly, the sport of Xiangqi had not yet reached rock bottom.
In September, the CXA was back in the headlinesannouncing that Wang Tianyi, the world’s best player for 11 consecutive years and in the eyes of many the greatest of all time, and his Hangzhou teammate Wang Yuefei, grandmaster since 2013, had been banned for life after being found guilty of conspiracy. “for a long time” to fix matches.
Chinese sport is trying to solve a widespread corruption problem. The announcement comes just nine days after the Chinese Football Association announced that 43 players and officials, including three former internationals, had been arrested. banned for life for match-fixing along with 17 others for five years, and the month after their own vice president was sentenced to 11 years in prison for accepting bribes.
Canada Soccer sent its women’s team to the Olympics as defending champions; they emerged promising to “transform into a federation that Canadians trust and are proud of”, after it emerged that not only had they attempted to spy on their adversaries in Paris using drones, but they had been doing it for ages.
This time they were criticized by a security service which, during the Games, intercepted an average of six drones per day, most of them – according to then Prime Minister Gabriel Attal – piloted by “individuals, perhaps being tourists wanting to take photos.”
Attal boasted of “systems in place that allow us to intercept (them) and arrest their operators very quickly,” and the person who controlled the Canadian team while monitoring a New Zealand training session before the opening match of the tournament quickly had his drone confiscated and a suspended prison sentence of eight months.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Olympic Committee sent home an assistant coach and an analyst, while its British coach, Bev Priestman, made it clear that she wanted to “take responsibility” and make clear that “I in no way case directed individuals”.
David Shoemaker, chief executive of the COC, said he had been “persuaded by the fact that Bev Priestman was not involved and did not know about it”, but changed his mind after an investigation. Priestman was suspended pending a review that resulted in her death. dismissal in November.
In the end, the spying proved not only extremely destructive, but also completely unnecessary: New Zealand was completely rubbish, and Canada was good enough to advance to the round of 16, despite being deprived of six points (after which he quickly lost).
Camille Herron and Conor Holt
Camille Herron is an extraordinary athlete. Already a multiple world record holder, in March she participated in a six-day endurance race in California during which she broke records of 300 miles, 400 miles, 500 miles, 500 km, 600 km, 700 km, 800 km and 900 km, as well as three -, four, five and six day distances.
By the end, she had completed the 4.1km course 220 times, her total distance of 901.76km beating a 34-year-old record by 18.129km. an impressive feat.
Her husband then returned to his hobby: editing the Wikipedia pages of his most prominent rivals as well as his own.
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The first edit after that six-day race involved removing, among other things, the phrase “widely considered one of the best trail runners in the world” from the pages of Kílian Jornet and Courtney Dauwalter, who are widely considered two of the best trail runners in the world. trail runners, on the grounds that it was “blistering”. Herron’s entry, meanwhile, was edited to add that she was, ahem, “widely considered one of the greatest ultramarathon runners of all time.”
In September Canadian Running magazine published activity detailswhich also included adding to his own entry words and phrases such as “legendary”, “prestigious” and “steel tenacity”, leading to Herron being dropped by Lululemonthe Canadian clothing brand that organized its six-day race.
Herron’s husband, Conor Holt, has since took full responsibility for changes to Herron’s own Wikipedia page, which he insisted were made in response to others “editing significant parts of his life”, without mentioning changes to that of his rivals.
Meanwhile, in September, Denmark’s Stine Rex, who earlier this year described Herron as “incredible and totally crazy and a great inspiration”, broke her record by six days, but that record, like time of Rex by breaking Herron’s 48-hour record in May, and Japan’s Miho Nakata, who broke Herron’s 24-hour record last year, has still not been ratified due to various complaints filedapparently by Herron, on the progress of these races.
Trishul Cherns, president of the World Multi-Day Marathon Organization, told Canadian Running magazine: “In my 46 years of ultrarunning, I have never seen anyone as talented as Camille, who is so dedicated to creating division and animosity within ultrarunning. community.”
Christian David Mosquera Duran
The Russian basketball team, banned from the Olympics due to the war in Ukraine, found itself wanting to stay sharp by participating in high-level international action. Christian David Mosquera Durán, a Colombian studying architecture in Kazan, missed his friends back home. The Russian team decided that the answer to their problem would be to invite a few international teams to their own tournament, which would be played in Perm; Durán decided that the answer to his problem would be to intercept one of the invitations and use it to bring over friends.
How he got there remains unclear – the Colombian basketball federation insisted he was never offered a place in the tournament, Russia that “all communications were made through official channels » – but the first letter sent, on letterhead, to the Russians by a man presenting himself as the president of the Colombian federation has been published.
“We happily accept the proposed conditions,” it reads, “including accommodation in a 4-5 star hotel, full board for our 20-member delegation and round-trip flights from Bogota to Perm.” He requested that any further communications be sent to Durán’s personal Gmail address.
A few weeks later, the team arrived and faced local club Parma on the first day of the tournament; after the first quarter, they trailed 41-2, and although they recovered to score 53 points, they still lost by 102. “We just came in and thought the difference would be even bigger ” said their coach, Jorge Vasquez.
Most of the Colombian players turned out to be decidedly amateurs: Durán sometimes played in the third division of a 3×3 league in Kazan; another team member is an engineer who runs a basketball blog; Vasquez was actually a real basketball coach, but for a Colombian girls’ school.
The organizers quickly “revised the schedule and format to ensure a more balanced and competitive tournament” (in other words, they sent the Colombians home).
Separately, an 11-person Ghanaian Paralympic team arrived in Norway for a marathon in April; none showed up for the race, the coach died in an Oslo hospital three days later, another member was arrested while trying to enter Sweden, the other nine remain at large .