Yohan Blake details ‘dreams’ for 2015

By Nick ZaccardiJan 27, 2015, 2:37 PM EST

If there’s a sprinter with more to prove than Usain Bolt this year, it’s countryman Yohan Blake.

Since the 2012 Olympics, Blake hasn’t looked anything like the man who won 100m and 200m silver behind Bolt in London (and upset Bolt in both distances at the Jamaican Olympic trials).

The last time we saw Blake in competition was July 11, trailing a lackluster 100m field in Glasgow, then tumbling to the track mid-race and being wheeled out of sight in a chair (video here).

“If I didn’t stop myself [in the race], I would be carried over,” Blake said while launching adidas’ “Ultra Boost” shoes in New York on Thursday. “That never happened to me before. I think it’s like karma. I was in training, saying I never get injured before [presumably in a race, since Blake has dealt with injuries suffered outside of competition].”

In Glasgow, Blake initially called the injury a cramp, but it was much worse, more serious even than a torn hamstring that caused him to miss almost all of the 2013 season.

“The muscle came off the bone and had to be reattached,” Blake said.

The 25-year-old who likes to be called “The Beast” — with matching long fingernails — is back training but said he will see a doctor in Munich in the first half of March, hoping to be cleared for full-speed workouts. Blake said he can reach full fitness two weeks after being cleared.

He will return to a sprint scene dominated in 2014 by Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic 100m champion five years removed from a four-year doping ban. Gatlin posted the fastest 100m and 200m times in the world last year — 9.77 and 19.68 seconds — with Bolt largely sidelined due to a foot injury.

“You could say he’s the man,” said Blake, who ran 10.02 and 20.48 in 2014 before the Glasgow tumble.

Blake has said he sets dreams rather than goals. And the immediate dreams are very important, given he has also said he wants to retire before 2020, which would make the Rio 2016 Games his Olympic farewell.

He talks about regaining the World Championship in the 100m in Beijing this summer. Blake is the only man other than Bolt to win an Olympic or World Championships gold medal in the 100m or 200m since 2007. He did so in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011, after Bolt infamously false-started out of the 100m final.

“I’ve been dreaming from September about getting back my title,” Blake said. “Every day they trouble me about the 9.69 [his personal best in the 100m, set two weeks after the London Olympics], that I need to change it. I’m working to change that as well.

“I need to get back my title. And the Olympics, I need to get three golds there.”

Many would say Blake’s best chance at being pushed to a personal-best time would come in a race with Bolt, which hasn’t happened since the 2012 Olympics. Blake has cited “big money” for why they have entered the same meets but raced different distances, though Bolt’s agent has said it’s not about that.

Blake acknowledged it’s unlikely the two Jamaicans will go head to head before the Jamaican national championships in June.

“I don’t think they’re going to allow it,” Blake said, smiling. “But if it comes about, I will love it.”

It may not even happen at the Jamaican championships, as Bolt has byes into Worlds as the defending 100m and 200m champion.

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

By Nick ZaccardiMar 29, 2023, 7:00 AM EDT

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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. 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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IOC recommends how Russia, Belarus athletes can return as neutrals

By OlympicTalkMar 28, 2023, 8:45 PM EDT

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The IOC updated its recommendations to international sports federations regarding Russian and Belarusian athletes, advising that they can return to competitions outside of the Olympics as neutral athletes in individual events and only if they do not actively support the war in Ukraine. Now, it’s up to those federations to decide if and how they will reinstate the athletes as 2024 Olympic qualifying heats up.

The IOC has not made a decision on the participation of Russian or Belarusian athletes for the Paris Games and will do so “at the appropriate time,” IOC President Thomas Bach said Tuesday.

Most international sports federations for Olympic sports banned Russian and Belarusian athletes last year following IOC recommendations to do so after the invasion of Ukraine.

Bach was asked Tuesday what has changed in the last 13 months that led to the IOC updating its recommendations.

He reiterated previous comments that, after the invasion and before the initial February 2022 recommendations, some governments refused to issue visas for Russians and Belarusians to compete, and other governments threatened withdrawing funding from athletes who competed against Russians and Belarusians. He also said the safety of Russians and Belarusians at competitions was at risk at the time.

Bach said that Russians and Belarusians have been competing in sports including tennis, the NHL and soccer (while not representing their countries) and that “it’s already working.”

“The question, which has been discussed in many of these consultations, is why should what is possible in all these sports not be possible in swimming, table tennis, wrestling or any other sport?” Bach said.

Bach then read a section of remarks that a United Nations cultural rights appointee made last week.

“We have to start from agreeing that these states [Russia and Belarus] are going to be excluded,” Bach read, in part. “The issue is what happens with individuals. … The blanket prohibition of Russian and Belarusian athletes and artists cannot continue. It is a flagrant violation of human rights. The idea is not that we are going to recognize human rights to people who are like us and with whom we agree on their actions and on their behavior. The idea is that anyone has the right not to be discriminated on the basis of their passport.”

The IOC’s Tuesday recommendations included not allowing “teams of athletes” from Russia and Belarus to return.

If Russia continues to be excluded from team sports and team events, it could further impact 2024 Olympic qualification.

The international basketball federation (FIBA) recently set an April 28 deadline to decide whether to allow Russia to compete in an Olympic men’s qualifying tournament. For women’s basketball, the draw for a European Olympic qualifying tournament has already been made without Russia.

In gymnastics, the ban has already extended long enough that, under current rules, Russian gymnasts cannot qualify for men’s and women’s team events at the Paris Games, but can still qualify for individual events if the ban is lifted.

Gymnasts from Russia swept the men’s and women’s team titles in Tokyo, where Russians in all sports competed for the Russian Olympic Committee rather than for Russia due to punishment for the nation’s doping violations. There were no Russian flags or anthems, conditions that the IOC also recommends for any return from the current ban for the war in Ukraine.

Seb Coe, the president of World Athletics, said last week that Russian and Belarusian athletes remain banned from track and field for the “foreseeable future.”

World Aquatics, the international governing body for swimming, diving and water polo, said after the IOC’s updated recommendations that it will continue to “consider developments impacting the situation” of Russian and Belarusian athletes and that “further updates will be provided when appropriate.”

The IOC’s sanctions against Russia and Belarus and their governments remain in place, including disallowing international competitions to be held in those countries.

On Monday, Ukraine’s sports minister said in a statement that Ukraine “strongly urges” that Russian and Belarusian athletes remain banned.

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