Greg Bretz upsets Shaun White for Dew Tour halfpipe title (video)

Greg Bretz
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Greg Bretz crossed his fingers at the end of a 600-foot halfpipe and watched Shaun White take his final run, expecting White to do what he always does.

White didn’t.

Bretz upset the two-time reigning Olympic halfpipe champion in the first of five Olympic selection events in Breckenridge, Colo., on Saturday. Bretz, who was 12th at the 2010 Olympics, won the Dew Tour iON Mountain Championships with a first-run score of 91.40.

“I’m ecstatic right now,” Bretz, 22, said on NBC. “I don’t know what to say. Olympics, here I come.”

Actually, Bretz has not qualified for the Olympics yet.

Breckenridge marks the first of five Olympic selection events for freeskiing and snowboarding. The others are on the U.S. Grand Prix schedule — Copper Mountain, Colo., next weekend, followed by Northstar, Calif., Park City, Utah, and Mammoth Mountain, Calif.

The five events will determine Olympians in snowboard halfpipe and the new Olympic events of snowboard slopestyle and ski halfpipe and ski slopestyle. The Olympic rosters are expected to be announced Jan. 22.

The overall Olympic qualification standings will be determined by the two best results for an athlete over the selection events. No more than four athletes can make the U.S. Olympic Team per event. It’s possible fewer than four will be named for some events.

13-year-old makes podium in women’s halfpipe

Bretz’s first run was the best out of a 16-rider field. White, the top qualifier, was the last man on the world’s largest halfpipe for both runs. After uncharacteristically crashing in his first run, White put down a solid but not spectacular second run.

Both he and Bretz waited, and waited, and waited for White’s score to come down. White just missed, getting a 90.40 to grab second place. Another American, Taylor Gold, was third with 89.60.

“My first hit I think was a little squirrely,” White said on NBC. “I think that’s what maybe cost me the win.”

White stood in 11th place after his first run, when he under-rotated a backside double McTwist 1260 and fell to the snow at the bottom of the 600-foot long, 22-foot high halfpipe. That run scored a 37.40.

“I just kind of, I half-assed it is the technical term,” White said, according to USA Today. “I was killing my run out. I was like, ‘Wow, I’m really doing it.’ And I kind of got in my head and just forgot what I was doing. I didn’t take off with enough momentum off the lip and it just came around too slow. It happens.”

White, who spent time this fall on a special training area in Australia, didn’t pull out all of his best tricks in either run.

“I did some tricks in practice that I think only one guy has done before so I am pretty excited,” he told the newspaper.

White gave his second-place trophy to 11-year-old Connor Tripp.

source: Getty Images
Getty Images
source: Getty Images
Getty Images

White will compete in the slopestyle final Sunday. He was the top qualifier. He told reporters he tweaked an ankle in his Saturday crash and would ice it before riding Sunday.

There were some surprises in the halfpipe final. 2010 Olympic bronze medalist Scotty Lago took 11th, putting him behind in the race for an Olympic berth.

Top international stars Ayumu Hirano and Iouri Podladtchikov were sixth and 13th, respectively.

Bretz’s second run was also uninspiring. He fell on his butt, slowly slid to the end of the pipe and dropped to the snow.

“I was super amped,” Bretz said on NBC. “I just didn’t throw it properly. I’m fine. I’ve been working out a lot this summer just for that reason. It helps out.”

The Breckenridge action can be live streamed here all weekend.

Breckenridge Men’s Snowboard Halfpipe
1. Greg Bretz (USA) 91.40
2. Shaun White (USA) 90.40
3. Taylor Gold (USA) 89.60

Star U.S. freeskier’s Olympic hopes in doubt

French Open: Iga Swiatek rolls toward possible Coco Gauff rematch

Iga Swiatek
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Iga Swiatek reached the French Open third round without dropping a set, eyeing a third Roland Garros title in four years. Not that she needed the help, but Swiatek’s immediate draw is wide open after the rest of the seeds in her section lost.

Swiatek dispatched 102nd-ranked American Claire Liu 6-4, 6-0 on Thursday, the same score as her first-round win. She gets 80th-ranked Wang Xinyu of China in the round of 32.

The other three seeds in Swiatek’s section all lost in the first round, so the earliest that the world No. 1 could play another seed is the quarterfinals. And that would be No. 6 Coco Gauff, who was runner-up to Swiatek last year.

Gauff plays her second-round match later Thursday against 61st-ranked Austrian Julia Grabher. Gauff also doesn’t have any seeds in her way before a possible Swiatek showdown.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

Swiatek, who turned 22 on Wednesday, came into this year’s French Open without the invincibility of a year ago, when she was 16-0 in the spring clay season during an overall 37-match win streak.

She retired from her last pre-French Open match with a right thigh injury, but said it wasn’t serious. That diagnosis appears to have been spot-on through two matches this week, though her serve was broken twice in the first set of each match.

While the men’s draw has been upended by 14-time champion Rafael Nadal‘s pre-event withdrawal and No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev‘s loss in the first round, the top women have taken care of business.

Nos. 2, 3 and 4 seeds Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, American Jessica Pegula and Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan also reached the third round without dropping a set.

Though all of them have beaten Swiatek in 2023, the Pole remains the favorite to lift the trophy a week from Saturday. She can join Serena Williams and Justine Henin as the lone women to win three or more French Opens since 2000.

She can also become the youngest woman to win three French Opens since Monica Seles in 1992 and the youngest woman to win four Slams overall since Williams in 2002.

Swiatek doesn’t dwell on it.

“I never even played Serena or Monica Seles,” she said. “I’m kind of living my own life and having my own journey.”

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Penny Oleksiak to miss world swimming championships

Penny Oleksiak
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Seven-time Olympic medalist Penny Oleksiak of Canada will miss July’s world swimming championships because she does not expect to be recovered enough from knee and shoulder injuries.

“The bar that we set was, can she be as good as she’s ever been at these world championships?” coach Ryan Mallette said in a press release. “We just don’t feel like we’re going to be ready to be 100 percent yet this summer. Our focus is to get her back to 100 percent as soon as possible to get ready for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.”

Oleksiak, who owns the Canadian record of seven Olympic medals (across all sports), missed Canada’s trials meet for worlds two months ago due to the injuries. She was still named to the team at the time in hope that she would be ready in time for worlds.

The 22-year-old returned to competition last month at a Mare Nostrum meet in Barcelona, after which she chose to focus on continued rehab rather than compete at worlds in Fukuoka, Japan.

“Swimming at Mare Nostrum was a checkpoint for worlds, and I gave it my best shot,” Oleksiak said in the release. “We reviewed my swims there, and it showed me the level I want to get back to. Now I need to focus on my rehab to get back to where I want to be and put myself in position to be at my best next season.”

Oleksiak had knee surgery last year to repair a meniscus. After that, she developed a left shoulder injury.

In 2016, Oleksiak tied for Olympic 100m freestyle gold with American Simone Manuel. She also earned 100m butterfly silver in Rio and 200m free bronze in Tokyo, along with four relay medals between those two Games.

At last year’s worlds, she earned four relay medals and placed fourth in the 100m free.

She anchored the Canadian 4x100m free relay to silver behind Australia at the most recent Olympics and worlds.

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