After headguards, vests next on hit list

London: Male boxers will step into the ring without headguards at the Rio Olympics for the first time since the 1980 Moscow Games, and their vests could be next on the hit list. With the lines between amateur and professional getting increasingly blurred, another distinctive difference between the codes -- the red or blue singlets worn by Olympics boxers -- is being questioned. “The removal of vests (from the ring) is a proposal we are looking at,” said an AIBA spokesman. Unlike professionals, who fight bare-chested, Olympic boxers have always worn tops -- possibly for reasons of decency in the early days. 

US to send 555 athletes to Rio 

Washington: The US will send a total of 555 athletes to the Rio Olympics to compete in 244 medal events over 27 sports, officials said. There are 292 women on the squad and 263 men. It is the second time that the US will send more women than men to the Olympics after fielding a team of 269 women and 261 men in the 2012 London Games, the US Olympic Committee announced on Saturday. The team includes 68 Olympics gold medalists among 191 returning Olympians. Among the 191 returning Olympians, there are three six-time Olympians and seven five-time Olympians.

A bittersweet moment awaits China’s emigres

Rio de Janeiro: For former Chinese athletes who now compete for other countries, a meeting with the athletes from the motherland at Rio will be bittersweet. The Chinese emigres are most apparent in table tennis at Rio. Discounting 12 players competing for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, 27 of the 140 entrants in the singles were born in China but will represent nations like Portugal, Qatar etc. The first feeling if I meet them (in competition) is that I’m very unlucky, because it’s very difficult to beat them and it feels like the match may be over very quickly,” Melek Hu, who will represent Turkey in her second Olympics after moving there about a decade ago.