Mikaela Shiffrin finishes 12th in final race of season

By Nick ZaccardiMar 16, 2014, 8:32 AM EDT

Mikaela Shiffrin must wait until next season to check off that next goal.

The 19-year-old Olympic slalom champion finished 12th in the World Cup Finals giant slalom in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, on Sunday. It marked the last race of the season.

Shiffrin, who won her fifth slalom race of the campaign Saturday, was fourth after the first of two giant slalom runs Sunday. She dropped in the second run, finishing .95 of a second behind Austrian winner Anna Fenninger.

“I was trying hard, maybe a little too hard,” Shiffrin said. “But it was still a fun race.”

The Olympic super-G champion Fenninger, 24, won the giant slalom season title three days after clinching her first World Cup overall title.

In addition to her repeat slalom title, Shiffrin completed her season seventh in the World Cup giant slalom standings and sixth in the overall standings. She was 19th in the giant slalom and sixth in the overall last year.

Shiffrin had second- and third-place finishes in giant slalom races this season but is still looking for that first GS win to add to her nine slalom victories. She said before Sunday that breakthrough GS win is her next goal.

Her season is not finished, however. Shiffrin is expected to race at the U.S. Championships in Squaw Valley, Calif., this week.

“I’m going to keep attacking the GS and see what else I can come up with for next year,” Shiffrin said. “I improved a lot since last season.”

Fenninger finished her season on a tear, winning her fourth straight giant slalom race. She’s the youngest women’s World Cup overall champion since Lindsey Vonn won her second title in 2009.

Fenninger passed German Maria Hoefl-Riesch for the overall title in Lenzerheide.

Hoefl-Riesch, 29, crashed in the downhill Wednesday and had to be helicoptered off the course, ending her season. She still finished in the top three of the overall standings for a seventh straight year.

Lenzerheide Giant Slalom
1. Anna Fenninger (AUT) 2:01.28
2. Eva-Maria Brem (AUT) 2:01.53
3. Jessica Lindell-Vikarby (SWE) 2:01.61
4. Nadia Fanchini (ITA) 2:01.86
5. Lara Gut (SUI) 2:01.89
6. Maria Pietilae-Holmner (SWE) 2:01.90
7. Anemone Marmottan (FRA)
8. Dominique Gisin (SUI) 2:01.94
9. Federica Brignone (ITA) 2:02.01
10. Viktoria Rebensburg (GER) 2:02.04
12. Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) 2:02.23

Final World Cup Giant Slalom Standings
1. Anna Fenninger (AUT) — 518
2. Jessica Lindell-Vikarby (SWE) — 492
3. Maria Pietilae-Holmner (SWE) — 339
7. Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) — 257

Final World Cup Overall Standings
1. Anna Fenninger (AUT) — 1,371
2. Maria Hoefl-Riesch (GER) — 1,180
3. Lara Gut (SUI) — 1,101
4. Tina Maze (SLO) — 964
5. Tina Weirather (LIE) — 943
6. Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) — 895
7. Maria Pietilae-Holmner (SWE) — 647
8. Elisabeth Goergl (AUT) — 640
9. Nicole Hosp (AUT) — 575
10. Frida Hansdotter (SWE) — 534

Hirscher adds slalom globe to overall title

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U.S. women’s rugby team qualifies for 2024 Paris Olympics as medal contender

By OlympicTalkMar 31, 2023, 1:31 PM EDT

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The U.S. women’s rugby team qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics by clinching a top-four finish in this season’s World Series.

Since rugby was re-added to the Olympics in 2016, the U.S. men’s and women’s teams finished fifth, sixth, sixth and ninth at the Games.

The U.S. women are having their best season since 2018-19, finishing second or third in all five World Series stops so far and ranking behind only New Zealand and Australia, the winners of the first two Olympic women’s rugby sevens tournaments.

The U.S. also finished fourth at last September’s World Cup.

Three months after the Tokyo Games, Emilie Bydwell was announced as the new U.S. head coach, succeeding Olympic coach Chris Brown.

Soon after, Tokyo Olympic co-captain Abby Gustaitis was cut from the team.

Jaz Gray, who led the team in scoring last season and at the World Cup, missed the last three World Series stops after an injury.

The U.S. men are ranked ninth in this season’s World Series and will likely need to win either a North American Olympic qualifier this summer or a last-chance global qualifier in June 2024 to make it to Paris.

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Oscar Pistorius denied parole, hasn’t served enough time

Associated PressMar 31, 2023, 1:05 PM EDT

File photo

Olympic and Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius was denied parole Friday and will have to stay in prison for at least another year and four months after it was decided that he had not served the “minimum detention period” required to be released following his murder conviction for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp 10 years ago.

The parole board ruled that Pistorius would only be able to apply again in August 2024, South Africa’s Department of Corrections said in a short, two-paragraph statement. It was released soon after a parole hearing at the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre prison where Pistorius is being held.

The board cited a new clarification on Pistorius’ sentence that was issued by South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal just three days before the hearing, according to the statement. Still, legal experts criticized authorities’ decision to go ahead with the hearing when Pistorius was not eligible.

Reeva Steenkamp’s parents, Barry and June, are “relieved” with the decision to keep Pistorius in prison but are not celebrating it, their lawyer told The Associated Press.

“They can’t celebrate because there are no winners in this situation. They lost a daughter and South Africa lost a hero,” lawyer Tania Koen said, referring to the dramatic fall from grace of Pistorius, once a world-famous and highly-admired athlete.

The decision and reasoning to deny parole was a surprise but there has been legal wrangling over when Pistorius should be eligible for parole because of the series of appeals in his case. He was initially convicted of culpable homicide, a charge comparable to manslaughter, in 2014 but the case went through a number of appeals before Pistorius was finally sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison for murder in 2017.

Serious offenders must serve at least half their sentence to be eligible for parole in South Africa. Pistorius’ lawyers had previously gone to court to argue that he was eligible because he had served the required portion if they also counted periods served in jail from late 2014 following his culpable homicide conviction.

The lawyer handling Pistorius’ parole application did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

June Steenkamp attended Pistorius’ hearing inside the prison complex to oppose his parole. The parents have said they still do not believe Pistorius’ account of their daughter’s killing and wanted him to stay in jail.

Pistorius, who is now 36, has always claimed he killed Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law student, in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine’s Day 2013 after mistaking her for a dangerous intruder in his home. He shot four times with his licensed 9 mm pistol through a closed toilet cubicle door in his bathroom, where Steenkamp was, hitting her multiple times. Pistorius claimed he didn’t realize his girlfriend had got out of bed and gone to the bathroom.

The Steenkamps say they still think he is lying and killed her intentionally after a late-night argument.

Lawyer Koen had struck a more critical tone when addressing reporters outside the prison before the hearing, saying the Steenkamps believed Pistorius could not be considered to be rehabilitated “unless he comes clean” over the killing.

“He’s the killer of their daughter. For them, it’s a life sentence,” Koen said before the hearing.

June Steenkamp had sat grim-faced in the back seat of a car nearby while Koen spoke to reporters outside the prison gates ahead of the hearing. June Steenkamp and Koen were then driven into the prison in a Department of Corrections vehicle. June Steenkamp made her submission to the parole board in a separate room to Pistorius and did not come face-to-face with her daughter’s killer, Koen said.

Barry Steenkamp did not travel for the hearing because of poor health but a family friend read out a statement to the parole board on his behalf, the parents’ lawyer said.

Pistorius was once hailed as an inspirational figure for overcoming the adversity of his disability, before his murder trial and sensational downfall captivated the world.

Pistorius’s lower legs were amputated when he was a baby because of a congenital condition and he walks with prosthetics. He went on to become a double-amputee runner and multiple Paralympic champion who made history by competing against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics, running on specially designed carbon-fiber blades.

Pistorius’ conviction eventually led to him being sent to the Kgosi Mampuru II maximum security prison, one of South Africa’s most notorious. He was moved to the Atteridgeville prison in 2016 because that facility is better suited to disabled prisoners.

There have only been glimpses of his life in prison, with reports claiming he had at one point grown a beard, gained weight and taken up smoking and was unrecognizable from the elite athlete he once was.

He has spent much of his time working in an area of the prison grounds where vegetables are grown, sometimes driving a tractor, and has reportedly been running bible classes for other inmates.

Pistorius’ father, Henke Pistorius, told the Pretoria News newspaper before the hearing that his family hoped he would be home soon.

“Deep down, we believe he will be home soon,” Henke Pistorius said, “but until the parole board has spoken the word, I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

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