Russian track and field athletes have not been "giving up their medals in Olympic doping cases, and local officials have vowed to kick them off the national team until they do." The Russian track federation said Thursday that "only one medal has been returned out of 23 that must be handed back because of failed retests of samples." The Russian track federation said that athletes who do not return medals will not "have the right to compete in its sports events" and will not be "eligible for national teams or for drug-testing pools that could allow them to compete internationally as neutral athletes" (AP, 2/16).
Members of the Japanese public lined up to donate unwanted mobile phones that "will be recycled into medals for the 2020 Olympic Games, as a project aimed at promoting sustainability was launched on Thursday." The campaign "kicked off at Tokyo's Metropolitan Government building where more than 100 people dropped the used handsets into a box that displayed the number of donations." The project is part of an "effort to save costs after the budget for the Tokyo Games ballooned" to more than 3T yen ($26.5B) at one point, though organizers have reduced that sum to $16.8B (REUTERS, 2/16).
