Jillion Potter done with cancer treatment, eyes U.S. rugby return, Olympics

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Jillion Potter, a U.S. Olympic rugby hopeful diagnosed with cancer in September, completed six cycles of chemotherapy in January, finished radiation March 31 and is training with an eye on returning to international competition later this year and making the 2016 Olympic team.

Potter, 28, was diagnosed with stage III synovial sarcoma three months after waking up in June with swelling underneath her jaw, what she later learned was a cancerous tumor.

Before that, Potter was on the U.S. roster for all five legs of the 2013-14 IRB Women’s Sevens World Series. Rugby sevens debuts at the Olympics next year. The U.S. women’s team is likely to clinch a berth at Rio 2016 by the end of June.

Potter last saw a doctor the first week of April, when a scan revealed clear lungs.

“I can’t say 100 percent, but maybe 99 percent confident that I’m cancer-free,” Potter said in a phone interview from Denver on Thursday. She said she’ll know for sure after a doctor check-up in June.

Potter, who shaved her head last year, spent her first week post-radiation with wife Carol in Key West, Fla., earlier this month. Then she returned to Denver and got back to work.

She said she’s running three times per week, lifting three times per week and doing speed and agility work once per week.

“For a very long time I’ve never had to scrape the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, but chemo really takes a toll on your bone marrow, red blood cells, white blood cells,” Potter said.

The biggest struggle is cardio. Potter is prone to fatigue and isn’t nearly as strong as this time one year ago. During her chemotherapy — four-day hospital stays each separated by 21 days — she often walked a three-mile loop outside her hospital with Carol or visiting teammates. If it was snowing, she rode a stationary bike.

“I dreaded going back every month [for chemotherapy] because it’s very cruel in a way that the first week [after] is pretty awful, and then the second week is a little bit better, and by the third week you are normal, not like normal normal, but you feel good,” Potter said. “But by the time you feel good, you’ve got to drive back knowing you’re going to go through this again and again.”

But she’s confident she’ll be back at full strength by the one-year anniversary of her diagnosis.

“I’m very grateful I’ve been able to take this in stride,” she said. “I’ve had some side effects, but overall I think I managed it very well.”

The Women’s Sevens World Series debuted in 2012-13 and opened in Dubai in late November or early December each season. Potter is targeting a return to competition in Dubai in seven months, if not sooner.

Potter said doctors haven’t protested her aggressive training regimen.

“Everyone’s in my corner and rooting for me,” she said. “They just smile and give me a big hug.”

The Rio Olympic roster limit is 12 players. The current U.S. player pool is twice that.

“It’s going to be a challenge,” Potter, who previously came back from breaking her neck in 2010, said of making the Olympic team, “a challenge that I welcome. I’m still very confident that I can make the squad.”

Potter and her wife discussed the very real concern of a recurrence.

“We decided that you can’t live your life in fear,” Potter said. “This is a dream that I have that we want to pursue.”

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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

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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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