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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Even if only for two weeks, can Faster-Higher-Stronger overpower deadlier, scarier and bloodier? Can the Olympic Games still offer the world momentary levity, distract from terror, shootings, poverty and other worries in globally grim times? If not, what use is the multibillion-dollar celebration of youthful endeavor and mostly niche sports?Through no fault of their own, the athletes who will march in massed, joyful ranks behind their nations flags in Friday nights opening ceremony for the first Olympic Games in South America shoulder expectations beyond their own ambitions for gold, silver, bronze and personal bests.No Olympics in recent memory has opened under so many dark clouds, both within recession-battered Brazil and beyond. Headliners Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps are back for more medals. But no feat of theirs, or the other 10,500 Olympians, between the first medal awards on Saturday and the Aug. 21 closing ceremony will paste over recent horrors of 84 people murdered with a truck in Nice or the shooting massacre of 49 people in a Florida nightclub. Sports are, and always will be, trivial compared to such atrocities that have come depressingly thick and fast of late.The Olympics may help me take my mind off things, said Parisian lawyer Remy Durand, reflecting over lunch Thursday on the Champs-Elysees. But its not going to change my overall mood lastingly, after the attacks in recent weeks and months in France.Yet Olympic organizers cant be faulted for trying, with their Together we can change the world slogan and OlympicPeace hashtag. Cold War boycotts aside, the games remain a symbol of global togetherness, even if an increasingly commercialized one. By putting religion and politics aside, the Olympics still can remind the worlds people of their shared humanity, not their divisions.Picture Berlin in 1936, when white German long jumper Luz Long bonded with black American Jesse Owens when Adolf Hitler wanted to peddle racial supremacy. Or Sydney in 2000, when athletes from North and South Korea walked together behind one flag in the opening ceremony, momentarily putting aside more than half a century of enmity. Or Barcelona in 1992, when white South African Elana Meyer ran over to plant a kiss on Ethiopias Derartu Tulu. Meyer had won silver to Tulus gold in the 10,000 meters to become her countrys first post-apartheid individual medalist.On Friday, at the opening gala of these Olympics at Rios Maracana Stadium, 10 refugee athletes will march as one team behind the white Olympic flag -- a reminder to the world that they arent solely defined by their lack of a place to call home. While not as grand as opening ceremonies past, Rio still expects to wow.The Athens ceremony was classic, and Beijing was grand, was musical. London was quite smart. Were going to be cool, said creative director Fernando Meirelles.Still, the games have their naysayers. Doping scandals -- from sprinter Ben Johnson losing his 1988 Olympic gold medal over steroids to Russias recent state-organized subversion of anti-doping efforts -- have stained all Olympians and heightened cynicism of their feats and worth.On behalf of all of this summers competitors, a Brazilian athlete will pledge at the opening ceremony that they will compete without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship. The same promise has been made at all games since 2000 but may ring false among fans, especially with Russias flag fluttering among the others; the International Olympic Committee rejected calls for a blanket ban on all Russian athletes. The IOC, as it has in the past, will store some 4,500 drug-test samples to be taken during these games, so they can be thawed out and retested in years to come.Then theres the expense of the games. Big spending and the waste of unused venues in ex-host cities have forced Olympic organizers onto the defensive and left them with a shrinking pool of taxpayers willing to foot the bills. The $10 billion to $12 billion spent on Rios games should have gone to better causes in a city rife with poverty, critics say.After Rio, the Olympics rumble to Tokyo in 2020, leaving Rio de Janeiros 6.5 million people -- the racially mixed, socially divided Cariocas -- with the same concerns the world was largely oblivious to before the Olympic echo chamber turned the Zika virus and favelas into household words.Few outside Brazil cared about untreated sewage and teeming viruses in Rios picture-postcard Guanabara Bay before its polluted waters were chosen for Olympic swimming and sailing. Rios alarming murder rate and turf wars between drug lords and police werent so high on the globes agenda before athletes and hundreds of thousands of Olympic visitors discovered that the prospect of being in harms way has long been the darker flipside of Brazilian Samba, carnival and caipirinha cocktails.Despite the problems, Olympic ideals arent dead. Pope Francis told pilgrims on Wednesday at his weekly audience at the Vatican that in a world thirsty for peace, tolerance and reconciliation, he hopes the games can inspire everyone to pursue a prize that is not a medal but something more precious -- achieving a civilization in which solidarity reigns, founded on the recognition that we are all members of one human family.The U.S. womens basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, called the Olympics a two-week haven where people can get away from it all.Every time you get here, get settled in, nothing seems to matter to any country other than the competition -- as it should be, said Auriemma, now at his third games. These two weeks, the joy and spirit of competition seems to win out.And even on the streets of Rio, some Brazilians are beginning to embrace the moment and all that it means.Finally people are beginning to feel the Olympic spirit, said Ilene Pessoa, a college administrator who lives in Rios Copacabana neighborhood. The eyes of the world are on us.---Associated Press journalists Joshua Goodman, Doug Feinberg and Warren Levinson in Rio de Janeiro and Philippe Sotto in Paris contributed. Fake Shoes Ireland . The Olympic champion curler and TSN curling analyst immediately went online to look at the Halls long list of honoured members. Thats when the enormity of the honour sunk in. Shoes Ireland From China . Both players have lower body injuries that will keep them out of the lineup until at least January 31, which is the first game they can be activated from IR. https://www.shoesirelandsale.com/ . Vaives lawyer Trevor Whiffen claims the former 50-goal man wasnt provided with a copy of the claim beforehand and that he would not have agreed to the allegations made against the NHL had he been asked to review its contents. Wholesale Shoes Ireland . Robredo, ranked No. 16, bounced back from an upset loss to Leonardo Mayer in the second round of the Royal Guard Open in Chile last week to down Carreno Busta in 1 hour, 25 minutes. On a day filled mostly with qualifying matches, fifth-seeded Marcel Granollers of Spain also entered the second with a 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 win over Aljaz Bedene of Slovenia, while Guido Pella of Argentina defeated Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 7-6 (6), 6-4 to advance. Buy Shoes Ireland . Siddikur, whose previous win on the circuit came in Brunei three years ago, finished his bogey-free round with a birdie on the 18th for a total of 17-under 199. Indias Shiv Chowrasia, who has finished runner-up in this tournament twice, was in second place after a 66. A depleted Gold Coast are sweating on Nathan Peats fitness ahead of Monday nights NRL home clash with Cronulla after his no-show at training.Peats threatens to become the fifth Titans hooker to be sidelined after missing Thursdays session due to a hamstring complaint.Halfback Ash Taylor (groin) was also absent.We will be scraping the barrel if we lose Peatsy, said Titans veteran Greg Bird, who will return from suspension against his former club the Sharks.We want to make sure he will be out there.If that means missing training on Thursday, so be it.Gold Coasts depth will be tested if main injury concern Peats is ruled out.Nathan Friend (hamstring) wont be back for a fortnight while Kierran Moseley (appendicitis) is six weeks aaway from a return.dddddddddddd.Daniel Mortimer (hamstring) and Matt Srama (knee) are already out for the season.Bird believed Ryan Simpkins could step up in Peats absence.But he still expected Peats and Taylor to run out against a Sharks side on a club record 15-game winning streak.He (Simpkins) can play any number of positions, Bird said.Hes quite skilful so Id say hell probably be that bench utility role but it is still quite early.I think the guys (Peats, Taylor) will be right, come captains run on Sunday.The seventh-placed Titans are on track to play finals footy for the first time since 2010. 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