Olympic Notes: British Basketball To Get Funding Boost From UK Sport

British Basketball will get £75,000 ($96,500) from UK Sport as a second wave of funding to help support preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Basketball "lost out" in the initial round of government funding, in which 14 Olympic and Paralympic sports shared a £3M investment pot in December (REUTERS, 2/8).

The IOC will lift its ban on Russian Para-athletes -- but "under strict conditions." The 29-month suspension for the Russian Paralympic Committee, enforced in '16 following the McLaren report, will be lifted by March 15. IPC President Andrew Parsons said that 69 of 70 reinstatement criteria had been met (BBC, 2/8).

Amateur boxing "faces a breakaway threat" ahead of Tokyo 2020 after its int'l federation "elected a president accused of ties to organized crime." The AIBA said that a "rogue group" led by unnamed "Kazakhstani individuals" asked national boxing federations to write to the IOC offering to help run an Olympic boxing tournament without AIBA (AP, 2/9).