GANGNEUNG: South Korea’s Jang Hye-Ji launched 18 days of competition at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on Thursday by sliding the first mixed doubles curling stone in Olympic history down the ice.
While the official opening ceremonies are not until Friday night, the first mixed doubles curling event in the Olympic Games began a day early to open 18 days of competition that will conclude with the February 25 closing cermonies.
Jang took the opportunity to make Olympic history in her opening round-robin match match alongside Lee Ki-Jeong against Finland’s Oona Kauste and Tomi Rantamaeki before about 2,500 spectators at Gangneung Curling Center.
Other opening round-robin matches sent Canada against Norway, China against reigning world champion Switzerland and the Olympic Athletes from Russia against the United States.
The Russians — the 2016 world champion husband-and-wife team of Aleksandr Krushelnitckii and Anastasia Bryzgalova — are competing under the Olympic flag after Russia was banned from the Games for major doping violations at the 2014 Sochi Games.
The OAR duo launched their medal quest against US siblings Matt and Becca Hamilton, inspiring a solitary “Russ-i-a” yell from the crowd after scoring two points in the second end.
After seven round-robin matches through Sunday, the top four teams will reach Monday’s semifinals with medal matches set for Tuesday.
Pyeongchang Winter Olympics competition begins with curling
Pyeongchang Winter Olympics competition begins with curling
Africa Cup of Nations moved to every four years
- The tournament, which brings in an estimated 80 percent of CAF’s revenue, has traditionally been held every two years since its inception in 1957
RABAT: The Africa Cup of Nations will in future be held every four years instead of every two years, the Confederation of African Football said on Saturday.
The surprise decision was made at the body’s executive committee meeting in the Moroccan capital and announced at a press conference by CAF President Patrice Motsepe.
The tournament, which brings in an estimated 80 percent of CAF’s revenue, has traditionally been held every two years since its inception in 1957.
Sunday marks the start of the 35th edition, hosted in Morocco with the home team taking on Comoros.
Motsepe said the next Cup of Nations finals, scheduled for 2027 in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, will go ahead and then another tournament would be held in 2028 but after that it will be hosted every four years.
Motsepe announced the launch of an African Nations League annually from 2029 to fill the gap, following the example of Europe which holds its championship every four years.
“Historically the Nations Cup was the prime resource for us but now we will get financial resources every year,” he said.
“It is an exciting new structure which will contribute to sustainable financial independence and ensure more synchronization with the FIFA calendar.”
Holding the Cup of Nations every four years had been previously proposed by FIFA President Gianni Infantino but this had been rebuffed by CAF because of their reliance on the revenues that the tournament generates.
The timing of AFCON has long courted controversy because it has usually been hosted in the middle of the European season, forcing clubs to release their African players.
This tug of loyalty was supposed to be solved by moving the Cup of Nations to mid-year from 2019 but later tournaments in Cameroon in 2022 and Ivory Coast in 2024 were again hosted at the start of the year.
This year’s tournament in Morocco was moved back six months when FIFA introduced a new-look Club World Cup, which was hosted in the US in June and July.
