India claim maiden badminton team gold

Tokorozawa, Jul 9: Olympic boxing hopeful Arisa Tsubata is used to taking blows in the ring but it is during her work as a nurse that she faces her toughest opponent: coronavirus.

The 27-year-old juggles a brutal training regime in boxing gloves with long, irregular hours in surgical gloves at a hospital near Tokyo.

Tsubata mainly treats cancer patients but she said the virus was a constant threat, with medical experts warning at the peak of the pandemic that Japan's health system was close to collapse.

"We always face the risk of infection at medical facilities," she said.

"My colleagues and I have all worked under the stress of possibly getting infected."

Like most elite athletes, the virus played havoc with Tsubata's training schedules, meaning she welcomed the postponement of this year's Tokyo Olympics until 2021.

"It was a plus for me, giving me more time for training, although I wasn't sure if I should be so happy because the reason for the postponement was the spread of the infectious disease," she said.

Tsubata took up boxing only two years ago as a way to lose weight but quickly rose through the ranks.

"In a few years after becoming a nurse, I gained more than 10 kilos (22 pounds)," she laughed.

"I planned to go to Hawaii with my friends one summer, and I thought I wouldn't have much fun in a body like that. That is how I started boxing."

She quickly discovered a knack for the ring, winning the Japan national championship and a place on the national team.

But juggling her medical and sporting career has not always been easy and the first time she fought a foreign boxer came only in January, at an intensive training camp in Kazakhstan.

"That made me realise how inexperienced I am in my short boxing career. I was scared," she admitted.

Japanese boxing authorities decided she was not experienced enough to send her to the final qualifying tournament in Paris, which would have shattered her Tokyo 2020 dreams -- if coronavirus had not given her an extra year.

Now she is determined to gain the experience needed to qualify for the rescheduled Games, which will open on July 23, 2021.

"I want to train much more and convince the federation that I could fight in the final qualifiers," she said.

Her coach Masataka Kuroki told AFP she is a subtle boxer and a quick learner, as he put her through her paces at a training session.

She now needs to add more defensive technique and better core strength to her fighting spirit and attacking flair, said Kuroki.

"Defence! She needs more technique for defence. She needs to have a more agile, stronger lower body to fend off punches from below," he said.

Her father Joji raised Arisa and her three siblings single-handedly after separating from his Tahitian wife and encouraged his daughter into nursing to learn life-long skills.

He never expected his daughter to be fighting for a place in the Olympics but proudly keeps all her clippings from media coverage.

"She tried not to see us family directly after the coronavirus broke out," the 58-year-old told AFP. "She was worried."

Tsubata now want to compete in the Games for all her colleagues who have supported her and the patients that have cheered her on in her Olympic ambitions.

"I want to be the sort of boxer who keeps coming back no matter how many punches I take," she said.

"I want to show the people who cheer for me that I can work hard and compete in the Olympics, because of them."

New Delhi, Jun 24: Star Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan deeply regrets his "silly mistake" of not reporting a corrupt approach by an Indian bookie to the ICC, leading to his one year suspension from the game.

Shakib was banned for two years, one year of it suspended, for failing to report corrupt approaches during an IPL edition by an alleged Indian bookie named Deepak Aggarwal.

"I took the approaches too casually When I met the anti-corruption guy and told them and they knew everything. Gave them all the evidence and they knew everything that happened," Shakib told Harsha Bhogle on 'Cricbuzz in Conversation'.

"To be honest, that's the only reason I was banned for a year, otherwise I'd have been banned for five or 10 years," he added on the ICC's investigation.

The 33-year-old, who was in brilliant form before the ban, amassing 606 runs in the 2019 World Cup in the UK, said he regrets how he went about the situation.

"But I think that was a silly mistake I made. Because with my experience and the amount of international matches I've played and the amount of ICC's anti-corruption code of conduct classes I took, I shouldn't have made that decision, to be honest."

Lesson learnt, Shakib's advice to all young criceters is to never take any such message lightly.

"I regret that. No one should take such messages or calls (from bookies) lightly or leave it away. We must inform the ICC ACSU guy to be on the safe side and that's the lesson I learnt, and I think I learnt a big lesson," he added.

The all-rounder, whose ban ends on October 29, said he became a bit arrogant and never felt he was doing anything wrong by not reporting the bookie's approach immediately.

"Because you do most things right in your life, you tend to get arrogant with some decisions. You may not realise but you're doing wrong by the books. It never came to my mind that I am doing something wrong

"It was just a feeling of 'okay, what's going to happen, leave it' and I continued with my life. But that's the mistake I made. And that happens," Shakib said.

New Delhi, May 30: Former world chess champion Viswanathan Anand will be finally reaching India late on Saturday after being stuck in Germany for over three months due to the travel restrictions imposed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Yes.. Anand will be returning today," the chess maestro's wife Aruna told PTI on Saturday morning. Anand, who boarded an Air India flight (AI-120) from Frankfurt on Friday night will reach Bengaluru via Delhi.

He is expected to reach Bengaluru at 1.15 pm. The five-time world champion will undergo 14 days quarantine as per rules laid down by the Karnataka government.

"He will complete quarantine procedures and come to Chennai as per protocol," Aruna Anand said. The flights from Germany are only scheduled to land only in Delhi and Bengaluru.

The chess ace was in Germany to play in the Bundesliga chess league and was to return to India, but was forced to stay put after the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted sporting schedules across the globe, apart from restricting movement.

He was staying near Frankfurt and was doing online commentary for the Candidates tournament which was called off mid-way due to the pandemic and led the Indian team in the Online Nations Cup early this month.

Anand had been in touch with his family in Chennai on a regular basis via video calls and kept himself busy with chess-related work.