US Speedskating names World Cup short track team after National Championships

By Nick ZaccardiAug 26, 2013, 11:29 AM EDT

The U.S. Olympic team won’t be determined until January, but the early indications are out as to which short track speedskaters could be going to Sochi after last weekend’s U.S. Single Distance Championships.

The top six men and women in the overall standings after four days of competition at the Utah Olympic Oval were named to the fall World Cup team:

Men
J.R. Celski
Chris Creveling
Jordan Malone
John-Henry Krueger
Eddy Alvarez
Jeff Simon

Women
Jessica Smith
Alyson Dudek
Emily Scott
Sarah Chen
Lana Gehring
You Young “Sally” Chea

Nine of the 12 names above made the fall World Cup team last year. The outliers are Malone (a 2010 Olympian coming back from injury and illness), Alvarez, who, made the winter World Cup team last season, and, Chea, 16 and a 2012 junior worlds team member, a newcomer.

What can we draw from this for the Sochi Olympics? Not as much as four summers ago, when the Olympic team was pretty much determined at the U.S. Championships.

The 2014 U.S. Olympic team will be determined at the Olympic Trials, also at the Utah Olympic Oval, from Jan. 2-5. The U.S. will likely be able to send a maximum of five skaters per gender to Sochi, pending World Cup results this fall.

It’s very possible the entire team going to Sochi will be comprised of members of the fall World Cup team. Celski, a double 2010 Olympic bronze medalist, is again an Olympic medal contender over multiple distances and in a class of his own now that Apolo Ohno is retired.

Krueger was the second-ranked U.S. man behind Celski in the 500 meters last year, and Creveling was second to Celski in the 1,500. If anybody could break in, check Kyle Carr and 2010 Olympian Travis Jayner, both of whom competed last weekend.

The women’s team outlook is simpler. The top five U.S. women at last year’s U.S. Championships were repeated this year (though not in the same order). It’s also the same top five women in the world rankings from last year’s World Cup results — where the U.S. women failed to medal once: Dudek, Smith, Gehring, Scott and Chen.

Just off the bubble are a pair of Olympians — Kimberly Derrick, a discretionary pick for last year’s fall World Cup team, and Allison Baver, who has said she might attempt to make both the short- and long-track teams for Sochi.

Their 2010 Olympic teammates were Dudek and Gehring and Katherine Reutter, who announced her retirement in February.

The World Cup season starts in Calgary on Nov. 8.

Simon Cho receives ban for skate tampering

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Football takes significant step in Olympic push

By OlympicTalkMar 29, 2023, 2:18 PM EDT

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Football took another step toward possible Olympic inclusion with the IOC executive board proposing that the sport’s international federation — the IFAF — be granted full IOC recognition at a meeting in October.

IOC recognition does not equate to eventual Olympic inclusion, but it is a necessary early marker if a sport is to join the Olympics down the line. The IOC gave the IFAF provisional recognition in 2013.

Specific measures are required for IOC recognition, including having an anti-doping policy compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency and having 50 affiliated national federations from at least three continents. The IFAF has 74 national federations over five continents with almost 4.8 million registered athletes, according to the IOC.

The NFL has helped lead the push for flag football to be added for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Flag football had medal events for men and women at last year’s World Games, a multi-sport competition including Olympic and non-Olympic sports, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Football is one of nine sports that have been reported to be in the running to be proposed by LA 2028 to the IOC to be added for the 2028 Games only. LA 2028 has not announced which, if any sports, it plans to propose.

Under rules instituted before the Tokyo Games, Olympic hosts have successfully proposed to the IOC adding sports solely for their edition of the Games.

For Tokyo, baseball-softball, karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were added. For Paris, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were approved again, and breaking will make its Olympic debut. Those sports were added four years out from the Games.

For 2028, the other sports reportedly in the running for proposal are baseball and softball, breaking, cricket, karate, kickboxing, lacrosse, motorsports and squash.

All of the other eight sports reportedly in the running for 2028 proposal already have a federation with full IOC recognition (if one counts the international motorcycle racing federation for motorsports).

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Helen Maroulis stars in wrestling documentary, with help from Chris Pratt

By Nick ZaccardiMar 29, 2023, 10:05 AM EDT

Getty

One of the remarkable recent Olympic comeback stories is the subject of a film that will be shown nationwide in theaters for one day only on Thursday.

“Helen | Believe” is a documentary about Helen Maroulis, the first U.S. Olympic women’s wrestling champion. It is produced by Religion of Sports, the venture founded by Gotham Chopra, Michael Strahan and Tom Brady. Showing details are here.

After taking gold at the 2016 Rio Games, Maroulis briefly retired in 2019 during a two-year stretch in which she dealt with concussions and post-traumatic stress disorder. The film focuses on that period and her successful bid to return and qualify for the Tokyo Games, where she took bronze.

In a poignant moment in the film, Maroulis described her “rock bottom” — being hospitalized for suicidal ideations.

In an interview, Maroulis said she was first approached about the project in 2018, the same year she had her first life-changing concussion that January. A wrestling partner’s mother was connected to director Dylan Mulick.

Maroulis agreed to the film in part to help spread mental health awareness in sports. Later, she cried while watching the 2020 HBO film, “The Weight of Gold,” on the mental health challenges that other Olympians faced, because it resonated with her so much.

“When you’re going through something, it sometimes gives you an anchor of hope to know that someone’s been through it before, and they’ve overcome it,” she said.

Maroulis’ comeback story hit a crossroads at the Olympic trials in April 2021, where the winner of a best-of-three finals series in each weight class made Team USA.

Maroulis won the opening match against Jenna Burkert, but then lost the second match. Statistically, a wrestler who loses the second match in a best-of-three series usually loses the third. But Maroulis pinned Burkert just 22 seconds into the rubber match to clinch the Olympic spot.

Shen then revealed that she tore an MCL two weeks earlier.

“They told me I would have to be in a brace for six weeks,” she said then. “I said, ‘I don’t have that. I have two and a half.’”

Maroulis said she later asked the director what would have happened if she didn’t make the team for Tokyo. She was told the film still have been done.

“He had mentioned this isn’t about a sports story or sports comeback story,” Maroulis said. “This is about a human story. And we’re using wrestling as the vehicle to tell this story of overcoming and healing and rediscovering oneself.”

Maroulis said she was told that, during filming, the project was pitched to the production company of actor Chris Pratt, who wrestled in high school in Washington. Pratt signed on as a producer.

“Wrestling has made an impact on his life, and so he wants to support these kinds of stories,” said Maroulis, who appeared at last month’s Santa Barbara Film Festival with Pratt.

Pratt said he knew about Maroulis before learning about the film, which he said “needed a little help to get it over the finish line,” according to a public relations company promoting the film.

The film also highlights the rest of the six-woman U.S. Olympic wrestling team in Tokyo. Four of the six won a medal, including Tamyra Mensah-Stock‘s gold.

“I was excited to be part of, not just (Maroulis’) incredible story, but also helping to further advance wrestling and, in particular, female wrestling,” Pratt said, according to responses provided by the PR company from submitted questions. “To me, the most compelling part of Helen’s story is the example of what life looks like after a person wins a gold medal. The inevitable comedown, the trauma around her injuries, the PTSD, the drive to continue that is what makes her who she is.”

Maroulis, who now trains in Arizona, hopes to qualify for this year’s world championships and next year’s Olympics.

“I try to treat every Games as my last,” she said. “Now I’m leaning toward being done [after 2024], but never say never.”

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