RIO DE JANEIRO -- Even if only for two weeks, can Faster-Higher-Stronger overpower deadlier, scarier and bldier? Can the Olympic Games still offer the world momentary levity, distract from terror, shtings, poverty and other worries in globally grim times? If not, what use is the multibillion-dollar celebration of youthful endeavor and mostly niche sports?Through no fault of their own, the athletes who will march in massed, joyful ranks behind their nations flags in Friday nights opening ceremony for the first Olympic Games in South America shoulder expectations beyond their own ambitions for gold, silver, bronze and personal bests.No Olympics in recent memory has opened under so many dark clouds, both within recession-battered Brazil and beyond. Headliners Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps are back for more medals. But no feat of theirs, or the other 10,500 Olympians, between the first medal awards on Saturday and the Aug. 21 closing ceremony will paste over recent horrors of 84 people murdered with a truck in Nice or the shting massacre of 49 people in a Florida nightclub. Sports are, and always will be, trivial compared to such atrocities that have come depressingly thick and fast of late.The Olympics may help me take my mind off things, said Parisian lawyer Remy Durand, reflecting over lunch Thursday on the Champs-Elysees. But its not going to change my overall md lastingly, after the attacks in recent weeks and months in France.Yet Olympic organizers cant be faulted for trying, with their Together we can change the world slogan and OlympicPeace hashtag. Cold War boycotts aside, the games remain a symbol of global togetherness, even if an increasingly commercialized one. By putting religion and politics aside, the Olympics still can remind the worlds people of their shared humanity, not their divisions.Picture Berlin in 1936, when white German long jumper Luz Long bonded with black American Jesse Owens when Adolf Hitler wanted to peddle racial supremacy. Or Sydney in 2000, when athletes from North and South Korea walked together behind one flag in the opening ceremony, momentarily putting aside more than half a century of enmity. Or Barcelona in 1992, when white South African Elana Meyer ran over to plant a kiss on Ethiopias Derartu Tulu. Meyer had won silver to Tulus gold in the 10,000 meters to become her countrys first post-apartheid individual medalist.On Friday, at the opening gala of these Olympics at Rios Maracana Stadium, 10 refugee athletes will march as one team behind the white Olympic flag -- a reminder to the world that they arent solely defined by their lack of a place to call home. While not as grand as opening ceremonies past, Rio still expects to wow.The Athens ceremony was classic, and Beijing was grand, was musical. London was quite smart. Were going to be cl, said creative director Fernando Meirelles.Still, the games have their naysayers. Doping scandals -- from sprinter Ben Johnson losing his 1988 Olympic gold medal over steroids to Russias recent state-organized subversion of anti-doping efforts -- have stained all Olympians and heightened cynicism of their feats and worth.On behalf of all of this summers competitors, a Brazilian athlete will pledge at the opening ceremony that they will compete without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship. The same promise has been made at all games since 2000 but may ring false among fans, especially with Russias flag fluttering among the others; the International Olympic Committee rejected calls for a blanket ban on all Russian athletes. The IOC, as it has in the past, will store some 4,500 drug-test samples to be taken during these games, so they can be thawed out and retested in years to come.Then theres the expense of the games. Big spending and the waste of unused venues in ex-host cities have forced Olympic organizers onto the defensive and left them with a shrinking pl of taxpayers willing to ft the bills. The $10 billion to $12 billion spent on Rios games should have gone to better causes in a city rife with poverty, critics say.After Rio, the Olympics rumble to Tokyo in 2020, leaving Rio de Janeiros 6.5 million people -- the racially mixed, socially divided Cariocas -- with the same concerns the world was largely oblivious to before the Olympic echo chamber turned the Zika virus and favelas into household words.Few outside Brazil cared about untreated sewage and teeming viruses in Rios picture-postcard Guanabara Bay before its polluted waters were chosen for Olympic swimming and sailing. Rios alarming murder rate and turf wars between drug lords and police werent so high on the globes agenda before athletes and hundreds of thousands of Olympic visitors discovered that the prospect of being in harms way has long been the darker flipside of Brazilian Samba, carnival and caipirinha cocktails.Despite the problems, Olympic ideals arent dead. Pope Francis told pilgrims on Wednesday at his weekly audience at the Vatican that in a world thirsty for peace, tolerance and reconciliation, he hopes the games can inspire everyone to pursue a prize that is not a medal but something more precious -- achieving a civilization in which solidarity reigns, founded on the recognition that we are all members of one human family.The U.S. womens basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, called the Olympics a two-week haven where people can get away from it all.Every time you get here, get settled in, nothing seems to matter to any country other than the competition -- as it should be, said Auriemma, now at his third games. These two weeks, the joy and spirit of competition seems to win out.And even on the streets of Rio, some Brazilians are beginning to embrace the moment and all that it means.Finally people are beginning to feel the Olympic spirit, said Ilene Pessoa, a college administrator who lives in Rios Copacabana neighborhd. The eyes of the world are on us.---Associated Press journalists Joshua Gdman, Doug Feinberg and Warren Levinson in Rio de Janeiro and Philippe Sotto in Paris contributed. Rafael Ortega Braves Jersey . -- Playing time has been limited for Maxim Tissot this season, so the Montreal Impact defender made the most of his first scoring opportunity on Saturday. Alex Jackson Jersey .Y. -- Paul Byron and Matt Stajan scored as the Calgary Flames started a five-game road trip with a 2-1 overtime win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternn. https://www.cheapbraves.com/73o-ronald-acuna-jr-jersey-braves.html . -- Running backs Darren McFadden and Rashad Jennings were back at practice for the Oakland Raiders on Wednesday despite being hampered by hamstring injuries. Joe Torre Jersey . The 15th-ranked Canadian men lost the opening two games of their European tour: 19-15 to No. 17 Georgia and 21-20 to No. Cito Gaston Jersey . After slipping from the summit during the week, the Gunners overcame struggling Crystal Palace 2-0 on Sunday thanks to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlains second-half brace. TORONTO -- Vladimir Sobotka is no longer feeling gd about his chances of rejoining the St. Louis Blues this season.Sobotka has spent the past two seasons in Russias Kontinental Hockey League and planned on returning to the NHL. But with one year left on his contract, Avangard Omsk and the KHL have made the process difficult.The 29-year-old forward said at media day for the World Cup of Hockey that while talks between camps are ongoing, hes no longer optimistic.Its been going on for five months, so Ive had enough of it, said Sobotka, who will play for the Czech Republic. Im not thinking about it..dddddddddddd Its just getting ready for workouts. I dont want to think about it anymore.NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Wednesday in Washington that Sobotka was having issues getting back. Even with the year left on his contract, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said the plan was for Sobotka to be back for the 2016-17 season.In 381 NHL games, Sobotka has 35 goals and 88 assists for 123 points. He had a total of 72 points in the KHL over the past two seasons. ' ' '