Canada head coach Bev Priestman will not take charge of their opening Olympic match against New Zealand and two members of her staff have been sent home from the Games amid claims a drone was used to spy on their opponents training.
Assistant coach Jasmine Mander and Joseph Lombardi, an unaccredited analyst with Canada Soccer, have been sent home after a drone was alleged to have recorded New Zealand training sessions on two separate occasions.
Canada, the gold medallists from Tokyo, are due to play New Zealand in their opening Group A game in St Etienne on Thursday.
A statement from the Canadian Olympic Committee said Mander and Lombardi would be sent home immediately and Canada Soccer staff would undergo "mandatory ethics training", while Priestman, the former England assistant coach, announced she had withdrawn from coaching Thursday's fixture.
"On behalf of our entire team, I first and foremost want to apologise to the players and staff at New Zealand Football and to the players on Team Canada," Priestman said.
"This does not represent the values that our team stands for.
"I am ultimately responsible for conduct in our programme. Accordingly, to emphasise our team's commitment to integrity, I have decided to voluntarily withdraw from coaching the match on Thursday.
"In the spirit of accountability, I do this with the interests of both teams in mind and to ensure everyone feels that the sportsmanship of this game is upheld."
Tennis star Sinner ruled out due to illness
Tennis World number one Jannik Sinner has pulled out of the Olympics on the advice of doctors after contracting tonsillitis.
The Italian, who captured a maiden grand slam title at the Australian Open in January, struggled with dizziness in his Wimbledon quarter-final defeat by Daniil Medvedev earlier this month.
He had been readying himself for a return to clay with a practice week in Monaco but started feeling ill on Monday evening and has since been told to skip the Paris Games.
The withdrawal of Sinner, who was also scheduled to compete in the doubles with Lorenzo Musetti, means 37-year-old Novak Djokovic will be top seed when the men's singles draw is made on Thursday.
Sinner wrote on his social channels: "I am saddened to inform you that unfortunately I will not be able to participate in the Paris Olympic Games.
"After a good week of clay training, I started to feel unwell.
"I spent a couple of days resting and during a visit, the doctor found tonsillitis and strongly advised me against playing.
"Missing the Games is a huge disappointment as it was one of my main goals for this season. I couldn’t wait to have the honour of representing my country in this very important event."
Sinner would have been a strong contender for at least a podium position at Roland Garros after reaching the French Open semi-finals there last month, losing in five tight sets to eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz.
France and US to host Winter Games
Salt Lake City was awarded the 2034 Winter Olympic Games following a vote of the International Olympic Committee.
The US city, which hosted the 2002 Winter Games, earned 83 votes out of 89 at the IOC session, having been named the preferred choice in June.
"To the people celebrating back home: we are back baby, the Olympics are coming back to Utah," said Utah governor Spencer Cox, who was part of the presentation team, along with Olympic skiing champion Lindsey Vonn, to the IOC session in Paris.
A large crowd had gathered back in Salt Lake City to watch the announcement on big screens.
Salt Lake City had initially wanted to bid for the 2030 Games, which were awarded to France, but dropped those plans due to the date being too close to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The French Alps will host the 2030 Winter Olympics at an International Olympic Committee Session in Paris.
The award is subject to guarantees by the next French prime minister, and ratification by the national assembly by a deadline of 1 March.
The Games are set to take places at venues across the northern and southern Alps, with ice events staged in Nice on the Cote d'Azur.
IOC president Thomas Bach said: "We have full confidence in France to organise an outstanding edition of the Olympic Winter Games, with the same creativity, imagination and flair we are currently experiencing at Paris 2024."
It will be the fourth time the Winter Olympics have been staged in France, following the inaugural edition in Chamonix in 1924, Grenoble in 1968, and 1992 in Albertville.
Dujardin dropped by charity as whipping video published
Charlotte Dujardin has been dropped as an ambassador for horse welfare charity Brooke amid a horse whipping controversy engulfing the British Olympian.
It comes after she was provisionally suspended by equestrian's governing body and she withdrew from the Paris Olympics over a video from four years ago showing her making what she described as "an error of judgement" during a coaching session.
The video shows Dujardin repeatedly hitting a student’s horse with a whip from the ground.
Brooke confirmed to the PA news agency that Dujardin was no longer an ambassador for the charity as a result, and said: "We were deeply disturbed to learn about this video.
"Our whole ethos is around kindness and compassion to horses, and to see the opposite of this from someone with such a high profile is beyond disappointing.
"There can never be a justification for mistreating animals."
It was only a few weeks ago @FlavorFlav saw his first #waterpolo match in person, earlier this week he took it a step further - getting into the pool with the Olympic champs! @nbcbayarea was there and talked with Flav, @maggiesteffens and @WaterPoloCoachK afterwards.#Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/xb9APrkMvz
— USA Water Polo (@USAWP) July 11, 2024
Flavor Flav gets a taste for water polo
The US women's water polo team will chase a fourth consecutive gold in Paris with new mega-fan Flavor Flav in their corner, after the rapper backed their Olympic dream and brought a new level of attention to the sport.
Captain Maggie Steffens put out a call for support earlier this year and Flav leapt into action, offering to sponsor the team and lending them his celebrity spotlight in the process.
"He has really opened up the door... (for) different people who would have never heard of the sport of water polo. And that's exactly what sports like us need," said Steffens, the all-time leading scorer in Olympic water polo.
Flav upped the ante weeks later when he inked a five-year sponsorship deal with both the men's and women's teams, and a video of the 65-year-old hopping in the pool to train with the women's squad this summer went viral.
