Current Affairs May 2020 - Sports

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1 - J. Arunkumar appointed USA men's head coach

Former Karnataka cricketer, J. Arunkumar has been appointed the head coach of the USA national team. Arunkumar had guided the team to back-to-back domestic trebles -- Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and the Irani Cup -- for two years in succession, in 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons.

Arun Kumar had also worked as the batting coach for Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League. This will be the first international assignment for Arunkumar. He has scored over 7,200 runs in first-class cricket and over 3,000 runs in List 'A' games.

2 - ICC banned Deepak Agarwal for two years

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has banned Deepak Agarwal from all cricket for two years. He accepted one charge of breaching the ICC Anti-Corruption Code. Deepak is one of the team owners of the Sindhi's franchise in the 2018 T10 league.

Aggarwal’s name had also come up in the investigations related to approaches made to former Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan in 2017-18 during the course of the Bangladesh Premier League and the 2018 edition of the Indian Premier League. Hasan had admitted to being approached by Aggarwal.

3 - ANZ Cricket Awards announced by New Zealand Cricket

The New Zealand Cricket announced the Annual New Zealand Cricket Awards. The awards were presented online for the first time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The key winners:

4 - Australia restricts use of saliva, sweat to shine ball under COVID-19 guidelines

The Federal Government of Australia has restricted the use of saliva or sweat for shining the ball under COVID-19 guidelines. Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in consultation with doctors has come up with guidelines, banning the utilisation of saliva and sweat to shine the ball.

The framework, which outlines a staged return to play, has three stages -- Level A, Level B and Level C. Currently, restrictions on sport are outlined as being at “Level A”, which restricts all training except that of the individual kind.

5 - India lose top spot to Australia in ICC Test Rankings

India lost the top spot in the ICC Test rankings to Australia. It dropped to the third spot after New Zealand. Australia now has 116 points and is followed by New Zealand (115) and India (114). England is the top ranked team in the ODI team rankings followed by India at second.

The T20I team Rankings is topped by Australia with 278 points. Australia tops the list for the first time since the T20I rankings were introduced in 2011. England is second in the ranking followed by India at third and Pakistan at fourth.

6 - Egyptian tennis player Youssef Hossam banned for life

The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) banned Egypt's tennis player Youssef Hossam from professional tennis for life after being found guilty of "multiple match-fixing" and other corruption charges. Hossam was found guilty for 21 breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program, which included eight cases of match-fixing, six cases of facilitating gambling, two cases of soliciting other players not to use best efforts, three failures to report corrupt approaches, two failures to co-operate with a TIU investigation.

Hossam is currently ranked No. 820 in the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) singles rankings and reached number 291 in December 2017, his career-best ranking.

7 - FINA postpones 2021 Fukuoka Aquatics World Championships to May 2022

The world governing body of swimming, Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA), has postponed the 2021 aquatics world championships, Fukuoka, Japan from 13-19 May, 2022. The decision follows the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Masters Championships will take place across the island of Kyushu from May 31 to June 9 of 2022. The current FINA President is Julio Maglione.

8 - Discus thrower Sandeep Kumari got banned for four years

Discus thrower Sandeep Kumari has been banned for four years by WADA's Athletics Integrity Unit for flunking a dope test. The National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) had failed to detect the banned substance — a steroid — which was present in her blood sample, collected by NADA officials during the National Inter-State Championships in June 2018 in Guwahati.

Kumari had won the gold with a throw of 58.41m. Her four-year ban will begin from 26 June, 2018 — the date of her sample collection.

9 - Commonwealth Youth Games postponed to 2023

The 2021 Commonwealth Youth Games was postponed to 2023, because of clash of dates with the Tokyo Olympics. The seventh Commonwealth Youth Games were scheduled to take place from August 1 to 7, 2021, in Trinidad and Tobago. Tokyo Olympics have now been scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8, 2021.

The Commonwealth Youth Games are organised by the Commonwealth Games Federation. As per the current Commonwealth games format, this international-multi sport event takes place every four years.

10 - Badminton World Championships 2021 postponed to November-December

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has postponed the World Championships in August 2021 to November 2021. It is now scheduled to be held from November 29 to December 5 at the Carolina Marin Stadium in Huelva, Spain. India's PV Sindhu will be defending her title in Huelva in 2021.

The World Championships was postponed due to the delay in the Tokyo Olympics. The Games were postponed to 2021, due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

11 - Kumar Sangakkara set to serve second term as MCC President

Former Sri Lanka skipper Kumar Sangakkara is set to serve his second term as the President of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). Sangakkara became the first non-British President of MCC, when he took the office on October 1, 2019. Sangakkara was part of the MCC XI that toured Pakistan in February this year.

Presidents of MCC have traditionally only served 12-month terms. Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London.

12 - Narinder Batra's term as FIH President extended to May 2021

Narinder Batra will remain President of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) until May 2021. The terms of Batra and the Executive Board members, which were due to end in October 2020 have now been extended. Batra's first four-year stint at the helm was set to expire at the gathering of the FIH membership, initially scheduled for October 28 to November 1.

International Hockey Federation (FIH) has decided to postpone the 47th FIH Congress, initially planned on 28 October - 1 November 2020 in New Delhi to May 2021, in India's capital city.

13 - FIFA postponed Under 17 (U-17) Women's World Cup in India to February 2021

FIFA has postponed the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup in India to February 17 to March 7, 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament was originally scheduled to be held from November 2 to 21, 2020.

The tournament will be held at five venues in the country -- Kolkata, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, and Navi Mumbai. 16 teams will participate in the tournament. Host India is an automatic qualifier and it will be the country's maiden appearance in the U-17 Women's World Cup.

14 - China won FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup

China won the inaugural FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup after they defeated USA. The FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup was a team competition held from May 5-10, 2020 on Chess.com featuring Russia, USA, Europe, China, India, plus a team representing the "Rest of the World."

Co-organised by FIDE and Chess.com, the event had a peak of over a million concurrent viewers across all languages and broadcast partners.

15 - French Cyclist Remy Di Gregorio banned for four years

French cyclist Remy Di Gregorio has been hit with a four-year doping ban related to a positive drugs test for EPO (Erythropoietin) in 2018 by International Cycling Union (UCI). He had tested positive for the hormone during a long-distance trip from Paris to Nice during a doping test on March 8, 2018. He will be suspended until 7 March 2022.

Erythropoietin is a hormone, which can increase endurance. It is injected under the skin and stimulates red blood cell production, which speeds up the delivery of oxygen to muscles.

16 - Indian boxer Akhil Kumar re-inducted into NADA disciplinary panel

Former Commonwealth Games gold-winning boxer Akhil Kumar has been re-inducted into the National Anti-Doping Agency’s Disciplinary Panel. He was formerly in the panel from 2017 to 2019. Akhil, an Arjuna award-winning Olympian, has also been the government observer for the sport between 2017 and 2019.

The NADA ADDP also features track-and-field Arjuna awardee Ashwini Nachappa among others. Mr. Vineet Dhanda is the Chairman of the Anti Doping Disciplinary Panel. The primary objective of NADA is to implement anti-doping rules as per WADA code, regulate dope control programme and create awareness about doping and its ill effects.

17 - Bundesliga of Germany became world’s first sports competition after COVID-19 lock down

The Bundesliga primary football league of Germany becomes the world's first major sports event to resume after COVID-19 lockdown. The restart plan was approved by Angela Merkel's government. The game resumed with disinfected balls, mandatory COVID-19 tests and elbow bumps.

The Bundesliga is a professional association football league in Germany and the football league with the highest average stadium attendance worldwide. It comprises 18 teams. Bayern Munich has won the Bundesliga the most, winning the title 28 times.

18 - SAI deposited Rs 30,000 in Khelo India Athletes accounts

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) has deposited Rs. 30,000 each as a pocket allowance in the accounts of as many as 2,749 ‘Khelo India’ athletes. The total budget adds up to Rs. 8.25 crore. The sports allowance has been provided for the athletes to travel to their home town, to keep up their diet at home and for other miscellaneous expenses.

The allowance is reportedly alloted for the first quarter of the 2020-21 year. The Out of Pocket Allowance under Khelo India scholarship is Rs. 1.20 lakhs annually.