ICYMI: Eiffel Tower Turning Gold; An Olympic First for NBC

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(ATR) The Eiffel Tower will be sporting a new look ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The iconic landmark will have a golden hue described as "yellow-brown" after an extensive revamp is completed in 2022. The color, which Gustave Eiffel himself wanted for the monument, will replace the "Eiffel Tower brown" that has been used since 1968.

Twenty-five painters strip, clean, apply rust-proofing and the final coat of paint to the entire 324 meter (1,063-foot) structure. All the painting is still done by hand. The cost of the project is reported to be $60 million.

This is the 19th time that it has been repainted, an average of once every seven years. Each repainting normally takes about two years to complete. The latest job, which began in 2019, will take longer than that. According to AFP all the previous coats of paint are being removed this time around. Given that the older layers of paint include lead, health protocols have been put in place for the workers.

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A First for Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony

(ATR) NBC Olympics will be giving the Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony unprecedented coverage.

For the first time, the network will air a live morning broadcast of an Opening Ceremony. The event will then be followed by a special edition of TODAY, NBC’s long-running morning show. The first-ever Olympic Daytime show to air on the opening Friday of the Games is after that with the traditional primetime broadcast to follow in the evening.

The Opening Ceremony begins at 8 p.m. in Japan, which means it will start at 7 a.m. in the eastern time zone and 4 a.m. in the Pacific time zone in the United States.

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IWF Reveals List of Provisional Candidates

(ATR) The International Weightlifting Federation releases the provisional list of candidates for the 2021 Electoral Congress.

There are 11 candidates vying for the presidency of the troubled federation, including current interim president Michael Irani. Irani, who said in October when taking the interim position that he would not be running for the fulltime job, does not have the support of his own British national federation.

There are eight other men running alongside Irani: Jinqiang Zhou of China, Pyrros Dimas of Greece, Ali Moradi of Iran, Mohammed Jalood of Iraq, Zhanat Tussupbekov of Kazakhstan, Stian Grimseth of Norway, Mohamed Yousef Al-Mana of Qatar and Nicu Vlad of Romania.

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