Milestones of 2024 - Part 2

 In last episode, we saw how in 2024 elections were hosted in majority of the countries and therefore shaping resultant political scenario. In this episode we will look into the development in the sports sector.

2024's important sporting event was Olympics 2024 which was the biggest sporting event organized in France hosted from 26 July to 11 August 2024. There were many world records created in the event to name a few in athletic section as below:

Athletics:

Joshua Cheptegei (Uganda) - men’s 10000m (athletics) - 26:43.14 

Previous record - Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia) - Beijing, 17 August 2008 - 27:01.17

Niklas Kaul (Germany) - decathlon javelin - 77.78m 

Previous record - Leonel Suarez (Cuba) - London, 9 August 2012 - 76.94m

Lindon Victor (Grenada) - men’s decathlon discus throw - 53.91m 

Previous record - Bryan Clay (USA) - Beijing, 22 August 2008 - 53.79m

Winfrid Yavi (Bahrain) - women’s 3000m steeplechase - 8:52.76 

Previous record - Gulnara Samitova-Galkina (Russia) - Beijing, 17 August 2008 - 8:58.81

Cole Hocker (USA) - men’s 1500m - 3:27.65 

Previous record - Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway) - Tokyo, 7 August 2021 - 3:28.32

Roje Stona (Jamaica) - men’s discus throw - 70.00m

Previous record - Virgilijus Alekna (Lithuania) - Athens, 23 August 2004 - 69.89m 

Arshad Nadeem (Pakistan) - javelin throw - 92.97m 

Previous record - Andreas Thorkildsen (Norway) - Beijing, 23 August 2008 - 90.57m

Marileidy Paulino (Dominica) - women’s 400m - 48.17 

Previous record - Marie-Jose Perec (France) - Atlanta, 29 July 1996 - 48:25

Tamirat Tola (Ethiopia) - men’s marathon - 2:06.26 

Previous record - Samuel Kamau Wanjiru (Kenya) - Beijing, 24 August 2008 - 2:06.32

USA - men’s 4x400m relay - 2:54.43

Previous record - USA - Beijing, 23 August 2008 - 2:55.39

Sifan Hassan (Netherlands) - women’s marathon - 2:22.55 

Previous record - Tiki Gelana (Ethiopia) - London, 5 August 2012 - 2:23.07

Faith Kipyegon (Kenya) - women’s 1500m - 3:51.29 

Previous record - Faith Kipyegon (Kenya) - Tokyo, 6 August 2021 - 3:53.11

Tamirat Tola (Ethiopia) - men’s marathon - 2:06:26

Previous record - 2:06:32 - Samuel Wanjiru (Kenya) - Beijing 2008.

When it comes to India, this Olympics season was a disappointing one as the country ended up without a gold haul and most heartbreaking aspect was that of unexpected disqualification of sportsperson Vinesh Phogat in wrestling domain.

Olympics gloom was over-ridden by World chess championship 2024. The World Chess Championship 2024 was a chess match between the reigning world champion Ding Liren and the challenger Gukesh Dommaraju to determine the World Chess Champion. The match took place between 25 November and 12 December 2024 in Singapore. It was played to a best of 14 games, with tiebreaks if required. The match was won by Gukesh 7½–6½ after 14 games. The win made Gukesh, at age 18, the youngest undisputed world champion. 

 

 

Milestones of 2024 - Part 1

2024 was as interesting as any other year of millennium. As usual there were ups and downs for the human race with unexpected conned side of human civilization trying to pull off surprise.

Yes, political ecosystem was burdened with more and more empowered mob trying to gain their prime time space which otherwise was occupied by learnt till then. Let us have a look at some important milestones achieved in the political world w.r.t. 2024.

2024 was a remarkable year for elections as voters in more than 60 countries went to the polls. It also turned out to be a difficult year for incumbents and traditional political parties. Rattled by rising prices, divided over cultural issues and angry at the political status quo, voters in many countries sent a message of frustration.

Raise of right wing:

Frustrations with the political class have created opportunities for right-wing populists and other challengers to traditional parties and the political status quo.

• Right-wing populist parties, many of which campaigned on sharply anti-immigration platforms, gained ground in this year’s European parliamentary elections.
• Parties on the left and in the center worked together to keep Marine Le Pen’s right-wing populist National Rally out of power in France in this year’s parliamentary elections. But Le Pen’s party nonetheless significantly increased the number of seats it holds in the National Assembly. In early December, National Rally voted with New Popular Front, a coalition of left-leaning parties, to end the government of conservative Michel Barnier after just three months.
• In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party won 29% of the vote in September elections – a higher share than any other party and its best-ever result. It is unlikely, however, that any governing coalition will include the party.
• Three far-right parties had a strong showing in Romania’s Dec. 1 parliamentary elections. Also, right-wing candidate Calin Georgescu received the most votes in the first round of the country’s presidential elections. However, on Dec. 6, Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the first-round results after evidence emerged of substantial Russian interference in the election.
• Portugal joined the list of European nations with a significant right-wing party following Chega’s success in the March elections. The party won 50 out of 230 parliamentary seats, up from just 12 in 2022 and one in 2019.
• Reform UK won the third-highest share of the vote in the United Kingdom’s general election, with 14%. And its leader, Nigel Farage, finally won a seat in Parliament in his eighth attempt.
• Alternative for Germany became the first far-right political party to win a state election in Germany since World War II.

Over the past decade, commentators have regularly debated whether right-wing populism in Europe is rising or falling, based on the results of the most recent election. But the larger story is that right-wing populist parties have become embedded in Europe’s political landscape, significantly disrupting the continent’s politics.

In some cases, right-wing parties have won the most votes, as in the Netherlands in 2023 and Italy in 2022. Sometimes they have lost power, as in Poland’s late 2023 elections. But they are now consistently competitive in ways they were not until relatively recently.

Populists have had success outside of Europe as well. In the United States, Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement has become the dominant force within the Republican Party. The party has moved in a populist direction that looks very different from the pre-2015 GOP.

With Republican electoral victories this year, the party will soon control the executive and legislative branches of government. Republican presidents have also appointed six of the nine current Supreme Court justices. Trump appointed three of these in his first term and may have the opportunity to appoint more in his second.

Different varieties of right-wing leaders have found success in other regions as well. In India, Narendra Modi may have suffered a setback in this year’s elections, but he still dominates the nation’s politics. In Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto won the presidential election amid concerns about his human rights record.

Populism has had some success on the left, too. One example is Mexico’s Morena party, which has only been in existence for about a decade but now dominates the nation’s politics. Building on the popularity of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the country’s relatively positive economic mood, Morena won outright majorities in both chambers of the Congress. And Morena’s Claudia Sheinbaum is now Mexico’s first female president.

Whether on the right or left, populist parties have been able to capitalize on voters’ frustrations with elites – and the belief, shared by many, that establishment parties and leaders are out of touch with ordinary citizens.

Source:  https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/12/11/global-elections-in-2024-what-we-learned-in-a-year-of-political-disruption/