7 Days, 7 Good News: Ed Sheeran as a Professional Footballer, Rammstein Instead of Helene Fischer & LGBTQ Olympians

Admittedly, Ed Sheeran, we hated you a bit during the European Football Championship. First you get the boys from England fired up for the duel against Germany with a private concert. And then you watch the English victory in the stadium, smiling happily. Think of your German fans, too! But okay, we wouldn't have done it any other way. And Ed Sheeran's new football act is really cool. As of now, the 30-year-old is part of the squad of the British third division club Ipswich Town. It's an idea from the club, which the pop star has sponsored for some time. "When Ipswich told me, I thought they were joking. But I love the idea," Sheeran said. Now he's hoping he won't actually have to play at some point. "Because I want to see us step up. And that's not going to happen if I play!"

"That such a thing still exists," the old ones among us Olympic chuggers will have thought, and some young ones "huh, a letter, what's that?" Yes, Anna Kristin Fischer provided the most romantic episode of the Olympics. The non-Olympic track and field athlete gave her boyfriend, eventual German silver medalist in the 50-kilometer walk, Jonathan Hilbert, handwritten love letters to take with her in her luggage to Japan. "It's just special when you get some handwritten words from your girlfriend," said the 26-year-old, visibly moved - and also dedicated the sensationally achieved medal to Anna Kristin Fischer. We hope that the two of them will become a role model for other young couples and that the writing of love letters will experience a renaissance - they have also mastered the newfangled gadget, they kept in touch between Japan and Germany via Facetime.

Thinking about tomorrow today - that's what Sebastian Coe has done with a view to the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The British top athletics official, who is also a member of the International Olympic Committee, is calling for consequences from climate change for the sports calendar. "The reality is that we all face this challenge in the future," Coe said after experiencing major heat problems in several sports in Tokyo. "We could be facing the same temperatures as early as Paris 2024," Coe warned. Hopefully, his words will be heard. Because so far, sports federations have made little effort to spare athletes agonizing heat battles. Paris could indeed be the big practical test. Perhaps Coe will present concrete proposals for changes by then - does he want to hold the competitions in other seasons or simply earlier or later in the day?

There's magic in every beginning - and sometimes also in a farewell. Audi's withdrawal from Formula E initially sounds like a setback for motorsport with e-mobility. But the Ingolstadt-based manufacturer has other motives. Audi now wants to participate in the legendary Dakar Rally with its electrically powered race cars. "The Dakar Rally offers us the opportunity to break new ground as a pioneer and to present and further develop our expertise in the field of electric mobility under extreme conditions," says Julius Seebach, Managing Director of Audi Sport GmbH. Until now, e-racing has been clearly overshadowed by Formula 1, which continues to rely on burning fossil fuels. Perhaps Audi's decision to compete with internal combustion engines in a globally renowned racing format will now give more momentum to electrically powered race cars.

Her story followed people around the world during the Olympics - after her successful escape to Poland, Belarusian track and field athlete Kristina Timanovskaya is now showing that she has a heart for the athletes of her homeland. The 24-year-old is auctioning off the silver medal she won at the so-called European Games in Belarus in 2019. With the proceeds she wants to support other athletes from Belarus, who are oppressed by the troops around ruler Alexander Lukashenko. May as much money as possible come out of it - but unfortunately it won't come close to alleviating the suffering that is being inflicted on people in Minsk thirsting for freedom of expression by their authoritarian state.

Those who are musically closer to Helene Fischer have to be very brave now: Rammstein supports the German team at the Paralympics. "Ich will" is the name the 20-year-old song that is one of the hard rock band's many successes. The publicity campaign of the Paralympics team now features table tennis player Sandra Mikolaschek, racing wheelchair racer Alhassane Baldé or track and field star Markus Rehm. The song fits the ambitious goals of the German Paralympics starters - "We want to go down in applause" is one of the lines of the hit.

Seventh place in the medal table and thus stronger than Germany: The of course only unofficial team LGBTQ has cleared according to a count of the site Outsports plenty in Tokyo. Outsports calculated eleven gold medals, twelve silver medals and nine bronze medals for the 180 athletes who came out in the end. Judo fighter Jasmin Grabowski from Germany is one of them, who won bronze with the German team. Outsports also calculated that Team LGBTQ won more medals than any single country that criminalizes homosexuality. The site counted Kenya, Jamaica and Iran among them. However, the site's authors also had to admit to some whitewashing of at least this count. For example, in Russia, whose admitted athletes came in fifth, it was difficult for people from the community, they said. And also in the USA as winner of the medal table at least transsexual athletes suffered until today from severe attacks.