Qatar Opens Huge Sports Museum for World Cup Year

Show and tell: People visit the newly-inaugurated 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum KARIM JAAFAR AFP
Show and tell: People visit the newly-inaugurated 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum KARIM JAAFAR AFP
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Qatar Opens Huge Sports Museum for World Cup Year

Show and tell: People visit the newly-inaugurated 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum KARIM JAAFAR AFP
Show and tell: People visit the newly-inaugurated 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum KARIM JAAFAR AFP

Qatar on Wednesday opened one of the world's biggest sports museums with artefacts from some of the most famous Olympic heroes but also gives prominence to local athletes hoping to boost efforts to attract a new generation into sports.

The 19,000 square meter 3-2-1 Museum Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum, next to one of the stadiums to be used in this year's World Cup, has taken more than 15 years to get off the planning board and fill.

After scouring private collections and negotiating with the International Olympic Committee and other federations, its 17,000 objects include a glove worn by late boxing giant Muhammed Ali, when he won a gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics, a Ferrari driven by Formula One champion Michael Schumacher and a shirt worn by Brazilian football legend Pele.

There is also a cricket bat that belonged to Indian hero Sachin Tendukar and a torch from each of the modern Olympic Games, according to AFP.

The museum is part of a billion dollar-plus drive by the Qatar government to build the Gulf state into a cultural haven alongside its big spending on sports events.

But museum director Abdulla Al Mulla denied the museum only intended to put the spotlight on Qatar's energy wealth.

"We are not showing off," he told AFP. "We have the confidence, we earned the confidence of international federations."

Al Mulla also said Qatar's ruling family wanted the museum to show off the state's sporting legacy.

Al Thani, a member of the Qatar ruler's extended family who raced from 2003 until 2015, also said the museum was an "icon" through its recording of all Qatar's athletes and their rankings.

"If I knew that there was a wall with a local athlete on it, for sure I would want to be better than that athlete."

"So I will do 110 percent to be on that wall as well. Now I am a target, I am behind there, and so people can work hard and remove my picture and put someone else's on it."



Cologne Starts Its Biggest Evacuation Since 1945 To Defuse WWII Bombs 

One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
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Cologne Starts Its Biggest Evacuation Since 1945 To Defuse WWII Bombs 

One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)

More than 20,000 residents were being evacuated from part of Cologne's city center on Wednesday as specialists prepared to defuse three unexploded US bombs from World War II that were unearthed earlier this week.

Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany.

Disposing of them sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the one on Wednesday, though the location this time was unusually prominent and this is Cologne's biggest evacuation since 1945. There have been bigger evacuations in other cities.

Authorities on Wednesday morning started evacuating about 20,500 residents from an area within a 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) radius of the bombs, which were discovered on Monday during preparatory work for road construction. They were found in the Deutz district, just across the Rhine River from Cologne's historic center.

As well as homes, the area includes 58 hotels, nine schools, several museums and office buildings and the Messe/Deutz train station.

It also includes three bridges across the Rhine, among them the heavily used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne's central station and is being shut during the defusal work itself.

Shipping on the Rhine will also be suspended.

The plan is for the bombs to be defused during the course of the day. When exactly that happens depends on how long it takes for authorities to be sure that everyone is out of the evacuation zone.