Paris (AFP)

Japan will once again be at the heart of sports life in 2020, less than a year after the Rugby World Cup, with an epicenter in Tokyo which will host the Olympic Games which are already turned upside down by meteorological and geopolitical considerations.

A little earlier, Europe will have launched a new formula for its continental football championship without host country, with sites scattered from Dublin to Saint Petersburg, from Copenhagen to Bucharest.

. Games without Russia

Four years after the Rio Games, whose Russian athletics had been banned because of revelations on a state doping system, the Tokyo Olympics (July 24-August 9) should be marked by an exclusion from Russia this times extended to all sports.

In any case, this was decided on December 9 by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to sanction the new Russian manipulations uncovered during the Olympiad.

Hand-picked Russian sportspeople with regard to their anti-doping "criminal record" should nevertheless be allowed to compete under a neutral flag, as was the case for four years in athletics.

Whatever their flag, in Tokyo, the Olympians will be hot. The heat wave that hit the Tokyo region during the pre-Olympic events in the summer of 2019, gave a taste of the physical test awaiting athletes and prompted the IOC to relocate the marathons and the walking events in Sapporo, more than 1,000 km north of the capital, where summer temperatures are more temperate.

In addition to the hot weather, the organizers of the Tokyo Games can also fear extreme weather phenomena, like Typhoon Hagibis, which cut the Rugby World Cup three games in October.

Handicapped by the heat of Doha during the Worlds-2019, planetary athletics could therefore still suffer from the weather in Japan. Christian Coleman, crowned world champion in the 100m in the touffer of Qatar, will have to do it to make us forget Usain Bolt, triple Olympic champion of the distance, who will live his first Olympics as a spectator.

. Les Bleus for a new double

In Tokyo, Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will have the opportunity to match her compatriot by winning a third Olympic title in 100 m which would definitely make her the greatest sprinter of all time.

In the pools, where London Olympic champion Florent Manaudou will make a comeback in the 50 freestyle, the American Caeleb Dressel is announced as the hero of the Games, in search of a collection of Olympic trophies worthy of Michael Phelps .

Finally the eyes of France will be fixed on the tatami mats where Teddy Riner could become the first judoka triple Olympic heavyweight champion.

One month before the Games, Euro-2020 (12 June-12 July) will be the ultimate legacy of Michel Platini, former UEFA president. In 2012, the French boss of the European body had decided to innovate with a pan-European Euro, in order to limit the construction of infrastructure, financial slippages and other subsequent gnashing of teeth, noted in particular in France for Euro-2016 .

Seven years later, the football odyssey, also intended to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the competition, is less defensible in terms of ecology, given the distances that teams and supporters will have to travel.

It is in Budapest and Munich that France will play its matches of the first round, in the group by far the most raised of the tournament the Blues will compete with Germany, to which they succeeded in 2018 in the winners of the Cup world, and Portugal, holding the European title.

The reigning world champions would have more merit in completing the World-Euro double that they had achieved in 1998-2000. At the forefront of the other contenders, awaits them Belgium, in search of a first major trophy with its golden generation.

One year after an electrifying edition, the Tour de France will try to find a media place in the middle of an overloaded summer. Colombian Egan Bernal, defending champion, chased by a platoon of Frenchmen regenerated by their exploits of the last exercise, will still be at the forefront.

Like the Great Loop in 2019, will the courts (finally) experience their revolution? This question, recurrent for several seasons, will animate the tennis season which begins in January in Australia. Roger Federer, 38, as well as Rafael Nadal (33) and Novak Djokovic (32) who confiscated the four Grand Slams of the past year between them, do not seem ready to let go of the ramp.

© 2020 AFP