China will build an "extension line of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway" that will become operational in '19 to serve the 2022 Winter Olympics. Local authorities said that with a designed speed of 250km per hour, the 53.2km rail line "will extend from the Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway to Chongli District of Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, where most skiing events for the 2022 Winter Olympics will be held." Travel time between Beijing and Zhangjiakou via the new rail line "will be 50 minutes and the trip from Zhangjiakou to Chongli," about 200km northwest of Beijing, will take 25 minutes (XINHUA, 6/3).
IOC NEW MEMBERS: The IOC Exec Board will propose eight new members for election at the 129th IOC session ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. The eight candidates are: Finnish racewalker Sari Essayah, Italian bobsledder Ivo Ferriani, Colombian Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Moreno, Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee Secretary General Auvita Rapilla, South African film producer Anant Singh, Canadian Olympic Committee President Tracia Smith, Austrian Olympic Committee President Karl Stoss and India's Reliance Foundation Chair Nita Ambani (IOC).
BOLT TEAMMATE NAILED: Usain Bolt could be "stripped of one of his six Olympic titles" after allegations that one of his Jamaican 4x100m teammates with whom he won Gold at the 2008 Games has tested positive for a banned substance. The world's greatest track-and-field sprinter is facing the news that Nesta Carter is reportedly "among those to fail a drugs test in the reanalysis of urine and blood samples from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing." Carter is "understood to be on the list of 31 athletes who failed those retests." Unless Carter "manages to clear his name, all four members of the Jamaican relay team -- which also included Michael Frater and Asafa Powell -- could lose their Beijing Medals, ruining Bolt’s perfect Olympic record" (London TELEGRAPH, 6/3).
ADDITIONAL FLIGHTS: Chile-based LATAM Airlines Group SA, Latin America's largest carrier, said on Friday that "it plans to add up to 300 additional flights to service the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games Aug. 5 to Aug. 21." LATAM said that it was "taking a number of measures in preparation for the games, including increasing the number of employees on the ground as well as security and retrofitting planes for Paralympic athletes." The airline invested as much as R$20M ($5.7M) in its Olympic operation (REUTERS, 6/3).
OLYMPIC BRIEFS ...
Visa, the exclusive payment provider at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, introduced a new innovation for use at the Rio 2016 Games -- the first payment wearable ring backed by a Visa account. The Visa payment ring will be given to all Team Visa athletes in Rio, a group of 45 Olympic hopefuls from around the world. The Visa payment ring is NFC-enabled, allowing Team Visa athletes to make purchases by simply tapping their ring at any NFC-capable payment terminal (Visa).
Visa announced the addition of Yusra Mardini to Team Visa Rio 2016. A competitive swimmer who grew up in Syria, Mardini's journey to the Olympic Games took a turn one year ago when she fled to Greece with 20 others on a small inflatable dinghy. A few miles from the Grecian shore, the boat's engine failed and Mardini and her sister, two of only three swimmers onboard, swam for three hours, pulling the boat to safety (Visa).
