导出博客文章RIO DE JANEIRO -- Even if only for two weeks, can Faster-Higher-Stronger overpower deadlier, scarier and bloodier? Can the Olympic Games still offer the world momentary levity, distract from terror, shootings, poverty and other worries in globally grim times? If not, what use is the multibillion-dollar celebration of youthful endeavor and mostly niche sports?Through no fault of their own, the athletes who will march in massed, joyful ranks behind their nations flags in Friday nights opening ceremony for the first Olympic Games in South America shoulder expectations beyond their own ambitions for gold, silver, bronze and personal bests.No Olympics in recent memory has opened under so many dark clouds, both within recession-battered Brazil and beyond. Headliners Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps are back for more medals. But no feat of theirs, or the other 10,500 Olympians, between the first medal awards on Saturday and the Aug. 21 closing ceremony will paste over recent horrors of 84 people murdered with a truck in Nice or the shooting massacre of 49 people in a Florida nightclub. Sports are, and always will be, trivial compared to such atrocities that have come depressingly thick and fast of late.The Olympics may help me take my mind off things, said Parisian lawyer Remy Durand, reflecting over lunch Thursday on the Champs-Elysees. But its not going to change my overall mood lastingly, after the attacks in recent weeks and months in France.Yet Olympic organizers cant be faulted for trying, with their Together we can change the world slogan and OlympicPeace hashtag. Cold War boycotts aside, the games remain a symbol of global togetherness, even if an increasingly commercialized one. By putting religion and politics aside, the Olympics still can remind the worlds people of their shared humanity, not their divisions.Picture Berlin in 1936, when white German long jumper Luz Long bonded with black American Jesse Owens when Adolf Hitler wanted to peddle racial supremacy. Or Sydney in 2000, when athletes from North and South Korea walked together behind one flag in the opening ceremony, momentarily putting aside more than half a century of enmity. Or Barcelona in 1992, when white South African Elana Meyer ran over to plant a kiss on Ethiopias Derartu Tulu. Meyer had won silver to Tulus gold in the 10,000 meters to become her countrys first post-apartheid individual medalist.On Friday, at the opening gala of these Olympics at Rios Maracana Stadium, 10 refugee athletes will march as one team behind the white Olympic flag -- a reminder to the world that they arent solely defined by their lack of a place to call home. While not as grand as opening ceremonies past, Rio still expects to wow.The Athens ceremony was classic, and Beijing was grand, was musical. London was quite smart. Were going to be cool, said creative director Fernando Meirelles.Still, the games have their naysayers. Doping scandals -- from sprinter Ben Johnson losing his 1988 Olympic gold medal over steroids to Russias recent state-organized subversion of anti-doping efforts -- have stained all Olympians and heightened cynicism of their feats and worth.On behalf of all of this summers competitors, a Brazilian athlete will pledge at the opening ceremony that they will compete without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship. The same promise has been made at all games since 2000 but may ring false among fans, especially with Russias flag fluttering among the others; the International Olympic Committee rejected calls for a blanket ban on all Russian athletes. The IOC, as it has in the past, will store some 4,500 drug-test samples to be taken during these games, so they can be thawed out and retested in years to come.Then theres the expense of the games. Big spending and the waste of unused venues in ex-host cities have forced Olympic organizers onto the defensive and left them with a shrinking pool of taxpayers willing to foot the bills. The $10 billion to $12 billion spent on Rios games should have gone to better causes in a city rife with poverty, critics say.After Rio, the Olympics rumble to Tokyo in 2020, leaving Rio de Janeiros 6.5 million people -- the racially mixed, socially divided Cariocas -- with the same concerns the world was largely oblivious to before the Olympic echo chamber turned the Zika virus and favelas into household words.Few outside Brazil cared about untreated sewage and teeming viruses in Rios picture-postcard Guanabara Bay before its polluted waters were chosen for Olympic swimming and sailing. Rios alarming murder rate and turf wars between drug lords and police werent so high on the globes agenda before athletes and hundreds of thousands of Olympic visitors discovered that the prospect of being in harms way has long been the darker flipside of Brazilian Samba, carnival and caipirinha cocktails.Despite the problems, Olympic ideals arent dead. Pope Francis told pilgrims on Wednesday at his weekly audience at the Vatican that in a world thirsty for peace, tolerance and reconciliation, he hopes the games can inspire everyone to pursue a prize that is not a medal but something more precious -- achieving a civilization in which solidarity reigns, founded on the recognition that we are all members of one human family.The U.S. womens basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, called the Olympics a two-week haven where people can get away from it all.Every time you get here, get settled in, nothing seems to matter to any country other than the competition -- as it should be, said Auriemma, now at his third games. These two weeks, the joy and spirit of competition seems to win out.And even on the streets of Rio, some Brazilians are beginning to embrace the moment and all that it means.Finally people are beginning to feel the Olympic spirit, said Ilene Pessoa, a college administrator who lives in Rios Copacabana neighborhood. The eyes of the world are on us.---Associated Press journalists Joshua Goodman, Doug Feinberg and Warren Levinson in Rio de Janeiro and Philippe Sotto in Paris contributed.
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Fletcher Cox Youth Jersey .35 million, one-year contract that avoided salary arbitration. Plouffe batted .254 with 14 home runs and 52 RBIs in 477 at-bats last season, his second as a regular in the lineup. Owen Farrell took centre-stage as Saracens claimed a record-equalling 13th straight European Champions Cup win which meant Denny Solomona suffered a losing debut for Sale.Farrell scored a late try and kicked 14 points as the reigning European champions matched Munsters record of successive wins with a hard-fought 26-10 victory.For the second match in succession, Sale had three players sin-binned against Saracens, but this was a vastly improved display from last weeks 50-3 hammering at Allianz Park.Solomona played 80 minutes on the right wing but could not find the whitewash as Saracens produced a typically clinical display to underline their class.Nathan Earle scored a second try late on for Saracens before Sale lock Bryn Evans grabbed a last-gasp consolation for the hosts, who slipped to their sixth straight defeat.Solomona was announced as a Sale player earlier this week before Castleford responded by issuing High Court proceedings for damages against the player.The Super League outfit are also seeking damages against Sale and Solomonas agent Andy Clarke for allegedly inducing a breach of contract.Sale confirmed on Tuesday that prolific try-scorer Solomona had signed a three-year contract with them, despite still having two years left on his Tigers deal.He was facing a Saracens outfit who were crowned European champions last season and who thrashed the Sharks 50-3 last week. Sale were significantly improved during the first half but Saracens established a slender 6-3 lead courtesy of two penalties from Farrell.The hosts created the first opening in the eighth minute when Josh Charnley collected possession inside his own half aand showed impressive pace to advance into the right channel.ddddddddddddhe former Wigan man then found full-back Mike Haley but he could not find Solomona lurking on the right touchline and the ball went into touch.Farrells first penalty then put Saracens ahead after Sale were caught offside, and then midway through the first half Solomona was presented with a golden opportunity.Brad Barritts wayward pass found Solomona on the edge of Sales 22 but the league convert spilled the ball and the opportunity was lost. Saracens began to probe but Sales defence was impressive as they continually kept their visitors at bay.After AJ MacGinty kicked a penalty to draw Sale level in the 28th minute, Saracens went close when Farrell orchestrated a fine counter-attack which saw Barritts kick to the corner sail into touch.Another penalty from Farrell restored the visitors advantage before the break while Sale lost hooker Rob Webber to a yellow card four minutes after the restart.Farrell then uncharacteristically missed two penalties in quick succession but he found his range for another three-pointer after Sale lock Evans was penalised for a deliberate knock-on.After Solomona failed to take MacGintys cross-field kick in his stride in the right corner, Sale then lost number TJ Ioane to a yellow card in the last 10 minutes after Farrell had escaped punishment for catching Haley late.Farrell then went over late on from Will Skeltons pass and Earle touched down a grubber kick before Evans crashed over late on for Sale. ' ' '
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