Author: Sean Ingle

• Ahmedabad is also bid city for 2036 summer Games

• Concerns over mismanagement and governance issues

India will be formally approved as hosts of the centenary Commonwealth Games in 2030 next month as the country steps up its ambitions to stage the 2036 Olympics.

Commonwealth Sport says its executive board had recommended Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat, as the host city for the 2030 Games ahead of what it called an “ambitious bid” by Nigeria. The decision still needs to be ratified by a general assembly in Glasgow on 26 November, but multiple sources described that process a formality.

• Indoor sports such as judo could switch to winter Games

• Coe wants athletics events outside stadium at LA 2028

Cross-country running and cyclocross have a good chance of being added to the 2030 winter Games in France, Sebastian Coe has predicted, as part of what could be the biggest overhaul of the Olympics in a generation.

The World Athletics president also confirmed that switching some indoor sports – such as judo – to future winter Games was on the table as part of the International Olympic Committee’s new “fit for the future” plans, designed to keep the Games relevant.

• Task force of scientists and federations to revise policy

• Trans and DSD athletes expected to be banned from female category

Kirsty Coventry has said there is now “overwhelming support” among International Olympic Committee members to protect the female category in a significant shift in its gender eligibility policy.

Coventry, who was chairing her first meetings as the IOC’s new president, said that a taskforce of scientists and international federations would be set up within weeks to come up with a new policy.

• First woman in the role replaces Thomas Bach

• ‘We are guardians of the Olympic movement’

Kirsty Coventry has promised to change lives and inspire hope during an official ceremony to mark her taking over from Thomas Bach as president of the International Olympic Committee.

The 41-year-old from Zimbabwe, who in March became the first woman and the first African to be elected to the most powerful job in sports politics, also paid tribute to the strong women in her life as she was given the golden key to the IOC by Bach.

Bach’s successor is already making a positive impression but will need all her resolve at mammoth organisation

A new day has broken, has it not? For several reasons, Tony Blair’s 1997 election victory speech comes to mind on what will be a historic and symbolic day for sport. Because in Lausanne on Monday, after plenty of handshakes and platitudes, the 41-year-old Kirsty Coventry will become the first female and first African president of the International Olympic Committee in its 131-year-old history.

It has been, by any measure, a dizzying ascent. In 2016, Coventry stepped out of an Olympic pool for the final time in Rio. Now, nine years later, she is the most powerful person in sport. Yet as she takes charge, there are some who suspect that the new dawn will look rather like the old one – and that her predecessor, Thomas Bach, and his administration, will remain puppet masters behind the throne.

New research has shown there was a positive impact during London 2012 but the legacy effects appear to be short-lived

Does hosting an Olympics really improve our wellbeing? If so, by how much - and for how long? Are we really happier when Team GB win gold medals? And are the lofty claims of politicians that London 2012 would make us healthier born out by the facts?

While the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was banging the drum for the capital hosting the Olympics in 2040 last week, academics at the LSE, Harvard and in Germany were answering these questions – and quietly busting a few myths about the legacy of 2012.