SHARE
COPY LINK

IOC

IOC chief warns Germany against ‘complacency’

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has warned his home team Germany not to be complacent if they want to win the World Cup after their 7-1 semifinal thrashing of Brazil.

IOC chief warns Germany against 'complacency'
IOC President Thomas Bach. Photo: IOC

Bach said that Germany were clearly the better team on the pitch in Tuesday's clash, which saw World Cup hosts Brazil suffer their worst-ever loss in their footballing history.
   
Germany will face the winners of Wednesday's semifinal between Argentina and arch-rivals Holland in Sunday's final.
   
"A final starts at 0-0, and there's no reason to be complacent.  the German said in Lausanne, headquarters of the IOC.

The Mannschaft can be confident, but not complacent," he said.
   
"The final will be much more a matter of tactics."
   
Bach watched Tuesday's game in a Lausanne hotel along with other members of the IOC executive board, who have been in session this week.
   
"The result wasn't just a shock for Brazil, but for everybody," he said.
   
He held back from heaping praise on the German squad, in line with a policy the 1976 Olympic fencing champion has stuck to since he was elected head of the IOC last September.
   
He could not resist commenting on Brazil's performance, however, saying that the Selecao had played well for the first 10 minutes of the match, before crumbling.
   
"The defence was non-existent," Bach said.

"There are days when you and your team can do whatever you can, but nothing works," he said.

"That was one of those dark days."

Bach also heaped praise on Brazil as the World Cup host nation, in a nod to the upcoming 2016 Olympics in Rio.   

Brazil's readiness for the World Cup faced repeated criticism, but he rejected that.
   
"We've seen the Brazilians' organizational skills, which have surprised many," he said.

"That, along with their enthusiasm for sport, has sent a great message to the world, and for the Olympic Games."

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

RUSSIA

Russian athletes lose appeal over Olympics ban

Forty-seven Russians implicated in doping lost a last-minute court bid to take part in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on Friday, just hours before the opening ceremony.

Russian athletes lose appeal over Olympics ban
Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
The applicants, who included Korean-born speed skater Victor An, had asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn an International Olympic Committee decision not to invite them to Pyeongchang.
   
“The applications filed by Russian athletes and coaches have been dismissed,” the CAS said in a statement.
   
The Russian situation has proved highly contentious in the build-up to Pyeongchang, after their team was banned but a certain number of “clean” Russian athletes were allowed to take part as neutrals.
   
Fifteen of those who lost their bids on Friday were among a group of 28 who controversially had life bans from the Olympics overturned last week by CAS, which cited insufficient evidence.
  
The other 32, including An, biathlon gold medallist Anton Shipulin and Sergei Ustyugov, a cross-country skiing world champion, were omitted from the list of Russians invited to Pyeongchang.
   
“In its decisions, the CAS arbitrators have considered that the process created by the IOC to establish an invitation list of Russian athletes to compete as Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) could not be described as a sanction but rather as an eligibility decision,” CAS said.
   
However, the CAS decision may not be the end of the matter. A source close to the IOC has told AFP that the 47 Russians have also lodged a case with a Swiss civil court in Lausanne.
   
A spokesman for the neutral Russian team, the 'Olympic Athletes from Russia', declined to comment when approached by AFP.