Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte fall short in final race in Athens

By Nick ZaccardiJul 13, 2014, 8:10 PM EDT

The winner of the last Michael Phelps–Ryan Lochte duel of the Bulldog Grand Slam was Yannick Agnel.

Agnel, the French Olympic 200m freestyle champion, captured the 100m free at the Athens, Ga., meet on Sunday, upending the American stars in a U.S. Championships tuneup.

Agnel clocked 49.37 seconds to edge the 22-time Olympic medalist Phelps by .05. Lochte was fourth in 49.64. Agnel and Phelps both clocked faster 100m free times earlier this year.

Swimmers were preparing for the U.S. Championships from Aug. 6-10 in Irvine, Calif., a selection meet for the Pan Pacific Championships from Aug. 21-24 in Gold Coast, Australia, and the 2015 World Championships in Kazan, Russia.

Phelps won two of his three events in three days in Athens, the fourth meet of his comeback after a 20-month retirement following the London Olympics. He finished ahead of Lochte in each race.

Lochte, in his first meet since an April aggravation of a major November knee injury, won the Phelps-less 200m individual medley final in 1:58.65 on Sunday, making him the 10th-fastest man this year and tops among Americans, according to SwimVortex.com. His first win of the meet allayed some concern about his knee.

The wonder going forward is which events Phelps and Lochte will swim at the U.S. Championships with the caveat that swimmers who qualify at Nationals for Pan Pacs can add more events at the latter meet.

Phelps has said he doesn’t want to swim the 400m IM or the 200m butterfly anymore. His other long-running events are the 100m butterfly, 200m freestyle and 200m IM. He’s also been known to enter the 100m free to earn 4x100m free relay duty.

Lochte has long been a rival to Phelps in the 200m free and 200m IM and also fancies the 100m free for relay consideration. He added the 100m fly to his repertoire last year, when Phelps was not swimming. He’s also won Olympic gold medals in the 200m back and 400m IM, though he hasn’t done too much of the grueling latter event since winning in London.

In other events Sunday, five-time 2012 Olympic medalist Allison Schmitt won the women’s 100m free in 54.64 over Olympians and World Championships relay medalists Megano Romano, Amanda Weir and Shannon Vreeland. Schmitt’s best this year is 54.46, second among Americans to Simone Manuel.

Tyler Clary bounced back from finishing third in the 200m IM to capture the 200m backstroke in 2:00.92, though he was 2.89 seconds faster in Charlotte on May 15.

Melanie Margalis won the women’s 200m IM in 2:10.71, ninth-fastest in the world and best for an American. Kylie Stewart, 18, took the women’s 200m back in 2:11.25.

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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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