Five men’s races to watch at U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials

By Jon AckermanJun 22, 2016, 3:24 PM EDT

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With 26 events over eight days, there will be plenty to watch at the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in Omaha, starting Sunday on NBC, NBCSN and NBC Sports Live Extra.

Here are five men’s events to focus on:

Men’s 200m individual medley – July 1
Michael Phelps touched first in the 200 IM at the past three Olympics. Ryan Lochte owns two Olympic silvers and a bronze from this event. Lochte holds the world record (1:54.00), but Phelps was the world’s top-ranked swimmer in the event in 2015. Phelps has beaten Lochte at the past three U.S. Olympic Trials, yet Lochte has won the event at the past four World Championships (Phelps was present only in 2011, though). The top two Americans at Trials will earn berths in Rio; it’d be shocking to see anyone other than Phelps and Lochte take the spots.

TRIALS: Broadcast Schedule | Entry Lists
PREVIEWS: Men | Women
FIVE KEY RACES: Men | Women

Men’s 50m freestyle – July 2
The fastest event on the docket always brings excitement. Cullen Jones won the silver medal in London, but he’s 32 now and the fifth-best American in the 50 free. The top seed is Nathan Adrian, defending Olympic gold medalist in the 100; he placed third in the 50 at Trials four years ago. The second seed is 19-year-old Caeleb Dressel, who won the 2015 Nationals in 21.53 (which would have given him silver in London). NBC Olympics analyst Rowdy Gaines says Dressel is “just magical to watch in the water.” Hoping to crack the top two will be Anthony Ervin, the 35-year-old who won 50m Olympic gold all the way back in 2000, when Dressel was 4.

Men’s 100m backstroke – June 28
Matt Grevers is the reigning Olympic champion in the 100 backstroke, but he’s no lock to make it to Rio in the event. He’ll be the second seed with a top time of 52.54, behind David Plummer (52.51) and just in front of Ryan Murphy (52.57). Plummer finished runner-up to Grevers at the 2013 Worlds, and along with Murphy is looking to make his Olympic debut.

Men’s 100m butterfly – July 2
Phelps is the reigning national champion, world record holder, and has the fastest time since the beginning of 2015 (50.45), but he’ll be challenged by Tom Shields, the fourth-place finisher at the 2015 Worlds seeking his first Olympics. He’s the owner of the world’s fifth-fastest time since January 2015 (51.03). Jack Conger, a 21-year-old looking to make his Olympic debut, was Phelps’ runner-up at 2015 Nationals (51.33). Then there’s Lochte seeded fifth (51.55), always a guy to keep an eye on.

Men’s 200m breaststroke – June 30
Kevin Cordes, 22, is the fastest American right now, posting a 2:08.54 at the 2015 Worlds to take home silver. That’s the third-fastest time in the world since January 2015, but he went lower (2:07.86) at the 2014 Summer Nationals. Josh Prenot, also 22, clocked in at 2:08.58 earlier this year, good for eighth in the world. And another 22-year-old, Nic Fink, owns the 10th-fastest time at 2:08.89. All of these men are looking for their first trip to the Olympics.

Jessica Pegula upset in French Open third round

By OlympicTalkJun 2, 2023, 7:22 AM EDT

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Jessica Pegula, the highest-ranked American man or woman, was upset in the third round of the French Open.

Elise Mertens, the 28th seed from Belgium, bounced the third seed Pegula 6-1, 6-3 to reach the round of 16. Pegula, a 29-year-old at a career-high ranking, had lost in the quarterfinals of four of the previous five majors.

Down 4-3 in the second set, Pegula squandered three break points in a 14-minute game. Mertens then broke Pegula to close it out.

Pegula’s exit leaves No. 6 seed Coco Gauff, last year’s runner-up, as the last seeded hope to become the first U.S. woman to win a major title since Sofia Kenin at the 2020 Australian Open. The 11-major span without an American champ is the longest for U.S. women since Monica Seles won the 1996 Australian Open.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

Mertens, who lost in the third or fourth round of the last six French Opens, plays a Russian Anastasia in the fourth round: Pavlyuchenkova or Potapova.

Earlier, ninth-seeded Russian Daria Kasatkina became the first player to reach the fourth round. She won 6-0, 6-1 over 69th-ranked American Peyton Stearns, the 2022 NCAA champion from Texas.

Sloane Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion, is the lone American woman left in the bottom half of the draw. She plays Kazakh Yulia Putintseva later Friday. Gauff, Bernarda Pera and Kayla Day remain in the top half.

Friday’s featured men’s matches: Top seed Carlos Alcaraz versus 26th seed Denis Shapovalov of Canada, and No. 3 Novak Djokovic against No. 29 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain.

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Olympians, Paralympians get early look at Paris on ‘Top Chef’ World All-Stars

By Nick ZaccardiJun 2, 2023, 6:36 AM EDT

A year from now, they hope to vie for medals in the City of Light. But on this day, four U.S. hopefuls for the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics competed on “Top Chef” World All-Stars at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, the first cross-promotional moment across NBC Universal’s One Platform for the Games.

As Parisians and tourists traversed the Champ de Mars, Olympic champions gymnast Suni Lee and sprinter Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Paralympic champion swimmer Mallory Weggemann and medalist sprinter Hunter Woodhall bundled and huddled and did everything possible to stay warm between rain showers.

Then came the 30-minute frenzy. Each athlete was paired with a cheftestant for what the Bravo series calls a wall challenge: the chef and the athlete each attempted to make the same dish while separated by a divider, unable to see what the other was doing. The duo whose dishes have the closest appearance and taste win.

It’s little surprise that Weggemann prevailed. At 33 on the day of filming, she’s a decade older than the rest of the athletes.

When she was 18, Weggemann lost movement from the waist down while receiving epidural injections to treat shingles. Four years later, she swam at her first Paralympics and won her first gold medal.

“I understand that when I go onto a [filming] set like today, and I’m rolling rather than stepping, that looks different,” she said. “Not everyone who’s going to watch ‘Top Chef’ is a sports fanatic, and so they maybe don’t watch the Olympics and Paralympics, but in that moment, we got to bring them into the movement in a way that we maybe otherwise wouldn’t. I’m not oblivious to the fact that as a woman with a disability in that moment, I also have the power to change perceptions because not everyone in our society has exposure to disability.”

Each of the athletes, flown in by Delta, the official airline of Team USA through the 2028 Los Angeles Games, came at a different point in their journeys.

Weggemann has already been to three Paralympics and earned five medals. She did the “Top Chef” competition while three months pregnant. Baby Charlotte arrived March 16. Her goal is to be on the podium in Paris and be able to see her husband and daughter in the stands.

Woodhall, who won three medals in Tokyo in his Paralympic debut, visited the French capital with his then-fiancée Tara Davis, who placed sixth in the Tokyo Olympic long jump. Their Texas wedding was a month after the “Top Chef” filming.

“In Tokyo, we weren’t able to be there for each other,” said Woodhall, referring to COVID-19 travel restrictions for those Games not allowing spectators. “Paris is so exciting because we’ll both be able to really be in the moment and support each other through both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

McLaughlin-Levrone had husband Andre Levrone Jr., a former NFL practice squad wide receiver, by her side in Paris. Before “Top Chef,” she had a whirlwind spring and summer, getting married in May and then twice breaking her world record in the 400m hurdles. At the top of her sport, McLaughlin-Levrone had a decision to make in the fall and winter offseason: continue in the hurdles, where she has accomplished everything, or venture into another event, the 400m without hurdles, to test herself.

“That world record has stood for so long, and no one’s come even close to it,” she said of the flat 400m, and its 37-year-old world record, while in Paris. “So we definitely want to be able to try that and see what we can do there as well.”

Now, McLaughlin-Levrone is set to return to Paris next week for her first outdoor race since August. It will be a flat 400m. She also plans to race the 400m at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in July, and possibly at August’s world championships in lieu of the hurdles.

Top Chef World All-Stars — *Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and cheftestant Sara Bradley meet after preparing their dishes during the “Top Chef” wall challenge. (Fred Jagueneau/Bravo)*

The gymnast Lee became one of the unexpected golden stories of the Tokyo Games. After Simone Biles withdrew from the meet, the Hmong American from Minnesota seized the all-around title, the biggest prize in her sport.

She hasn’t performed in international gymnastics since. Lee matriculated at Auburn and competed for the Tigers. But NCAA gymnastics involves different routines, competitions and scoring than Olympic gymnastics. It’s such a contrast that, traditionally, joining a college team has often meant retirement from the Olympic level.

The afternoon before the “Top Chef” filming, Lee walked inside the Accor Arena in the Bercy neighborhood, the site of the 2024 Olympic gymnastics events. A competition was taking place that included the Brazilian who took silver behind Lee in Tokyo.

“I am a little nervous to get back out on the bigger stage,” Lee said then. “Going to that meet actually was really important to me because I think I needed the help of re-motivating myself and seeing what I’m getting back into, watching the competition, just getting used to that atmosphere again.”

Two months after that experience, Lee announced she would leave Auburn after her sophomore year to return to elite training for a 2024 Paris Olympic bid.

The “Top Chef” integration helps launch summer Paris Games-related fanfare, including national and world championships in many Olympic and Paralympic sports and events to mark the one-year-out dates from the Opening Ceremonies (July 26 for the Olympics, Aug. 28 for the Paralympics).

“Top Chef,” in its 20th season, previously featured Olympians before the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games and then again before Tokyo. Host Padma Lakshmi noticed a common trait.

“Their attention to detail is extraordinary,” she said. “Having that Olympic training, and really listening to what your coaches want, and what the parameters of the contest is, is something that they’re skilled at doing day in and day out.”

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