Winter Champions Series debuts on NBC, NBCSN on Saturday

By Nate ClarkDec 15, 2016, 8:23 AM EST

Getty Images

In a first for the United States Olympic Committee, a single-day, three-sport event dubbed the Team USA Winter Champions Series will take place across the U.S. on Saturday on NBC, NBCSN and NBCSports.com.

Things kick off on NBC at 2:30 p.m. ET with the big air snowboarding event at the U.S. Grand Prix from Copper Mountain, Colo.

Big air features riders looking to stomp one clean landing after a cab- or cork-infused, backflipping, frontflipping, rodeo-ing, McTwistingly jaw-dropping jump, and is the newest event to be added to snowboarding for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games.

Sochi Olympic slopestyle champion Jamie Anderson is expected to compete in the big air event. Also, look for 2014 U.S. Olympic Snowboard Team member Chas Guldemond, as well as Julia Marino, winner of the Big Air at Fenway competition earlier this year.

Following snowboarding on NBC, the best women’s lugers in the world race in the fifth World Cup event of the season on the track used for the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics in Park City, Utah. Germany’s Olympic gold and silver medalists , Natalie Geisenberger and Tatjana Huefner, are first and second, respectively in this season’s World Cup standings.

Both arrive in Utah hoping to pick up their second win of the season. Also in the top 10 World Cup standings, Emily Sweeney and three-time Olympian and Sochi bronze medalist Erin Hamlin, will compete for the U.S.

Headlining the Winter Champions Series is the first of a two-game series between the United States and Canada in women’s hockey. The two teams face off at the USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Michigan at 4:30 p.m. ET and the game can be seen on NBCSN or streamed on NBCSports.com.

Both teams could have a big name returning to their rosters after lengthy absences from their national teams.

For the U.S., Amanda Kessel could wear the red, white and blue for the first time since the Sochi Olympic Games. She was part of a 37-player training camp from which the U.S. roster for the two-game series is to be picked.

Kessel’s life in hockey was nearly cut short when she struggled with lingering symptoms from a pre-Games concussion after she got home from Sochi. After benching her career for nearly two years, Kessel reunited with her University of Minnesota team in February, and would help lead the Golden Gophers to their second-consecutive national championship, and this spring she became the highest-paid player in the National Women’s Hockey League after signing a one-year deal with the New York Riveters.

Canada gets its Olympic goalie back. Shannon Szabados comes back after her time in net helped win back-to-back Olympic golds for Canada in 2010 and 2014. Szabados spent the previous two seasons playing in the men’s South Professional Hockey League in the U.S., with the Columbus Cottonmouths. This will be her first time wearing the maple leaf jersey at a game since making 27 saves and holding off an attacking U.S. squad 3-2 in overtime in Sochi for gold.

After hockey on NBCSN at 7:00 p.m. ET catch additional luge coverage of the men’s singles World Cup competition. Watch current World Cup leader, and reigning two-time Olympic champion, Felix Loch of Germany compete in men’s luge against the likes of Team USA’s Tucker West. West arrives in Park City hot off his second trip to the top of the World Cup podium this season after setting a track record in Whistler.

The action on Copper Mountain continues for a second day at the U.S. Grand Prix on Sunday in Colorado with snowboarding and freestyle skiing halfpipe finals. Coverage starts at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.

MORE: U.S. Olympians to receive $37,500 per gold medal in PyeongChang

Day	Event	Network	Time (ET)
Saturday	Snowboard Big Air — Copper Mountain	NBC	2:30-4:30 p.m.
	Luge World Cup — Park City	NBC	2:30-4:30 p.m.
	Women’s Hockey — U.S. vs. Canada	NBCSN	4:30-7 p.m.

Jessica Pegula upset in French Open third round

By OlympicTalkJun 2, 2023, 9:57 AM EDT

Getty

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, gets 96th-ranked Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the 2021 French Open runner-up, for a spot in the quarterfinals.

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.

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

Follow @nbcolympictalk

Fred Kerley flies into Florence via Grenada; Diamond League broadcast schedule

By Nick ZaccardiJun 2, 2023, 9:24 AM EDT

Getty

American Fred Kerley is about to race on a fourth different continent this year, but the seeds for this season — and all of his medal-winning seasons — were planted on the sand, grass and pavement of Grenada.

Kerley, the world 100m champion, headlines Friday’s Diamond League meet in Florence, Italy. Peacock streams it live from 2-4 p.m. ET. CNBC airs coverage Saturday at 1 p.m. ET.

It was to be a showdown between Kerley and the Olympic 100m champion, Marcell Jacobs of Italy. But Jacobs withdrew on Tuesday due to the nerve pain that has pushed back the start of his outdoor season. Jacobs withdrew from six scheduled races with Kerley dating to May 2022 due to a series of health issues since winning that surprise gold in Tokyo.

Kerley, who traded social media barbs with Jacobs earlier this spring, indicated a detente in a press conference Thursday.

“I’m not upset that he’s not competing, just wish him health and that he gets back to competing at 100 percent,” he said.

When speaking of himself, Kerley kept his trademark confidence. He wore a hat with a goat on it on Thursday and repeated that his focus is on two numbers: 9.69 (Tyson Gay‘s American record in the 100m) and 9.58 (Usain Bolt‘s world record). Kerley’s personal best, in two-plus years since dropping down from the 400m, is 9.76.

He resides in South Florida, a place that allows an outdoor athlete to train year-round. Kerley eschews that. He annually flies to Grenada for up to six-week stays.

“[I] work on a lot of specific stuff in Grenada to get me to the level I need to be when Budapest comes around,” Kerley said, referring to August’s world championships in the Hungarian capital, where he will bid to become the first man to repeat as world 100m champion since Bolt in 2013 and 2015.

Why Grenada? His South Carolina-based coach, Alleyne Francique, competed at three Olympics for the Spice Island, including placing fourth in the 400m at the 2004 Athens Games. That was the best Olympic finish for any Grenada athlete until Kirani James won a 400m medal of every color at the last three Games.

Francique recruited Kerley to Texas A&M out of junior college in 2015. When Kerley turned pro in 2017, he moved to the ALTIS training facility in Arizona. After a year, he went back to Francique at College Station — “It didn’t work out for me. I won’t say anything bad about the program,” he said in 2019, according to Track and Field News. Kerley has since moved to Florida, but Francique still coaches him remotely from South Carolina and with him for meet travel.

Kerley has trained in Grenada’s national stadium in St. George’s, which in 2017 was named after James. But a more unique venue for Kerley is a paved hill near the home of one of Francique’s friends.

“There’s no traffic, so it’s a good area to train,” Francique said.

There are few distractions there, aside from chickens, ducks and cattle. Francique noted that in the three seasons that Kerley trained in Grenada, he won bronze (2019 Worlds 400m), silver (Tokyo Olympic 100m) and gold (2022 Worlds 100m).

“So next year, maybe, he breaks a world record,” Francique said.

Here are the Florence entry lists. Here’s the schedule of events (all times Eastern):

12:30 p.m. — Women’s Discus
12:45 — Men’s Triple Jump
1:15 — Men’s Shot Put
1:43 — Women’s Pole Vault
2:04 — Women’s 400m Hurdles
2:15 — Men’s 200m
2:20 — Men’s High Jump
2:25 — Women’s 3000m Steeplechase
2:42 — Women’s Long Jump
2:44 — Women’s 100m
2:56 — Men’s 110m Hurdles
3:06 — Men’s 5000m
3:28 — Women’s 400m
3:39 — Men’s 100m
3:49 — Women’s 1500m

Here are five events to watch:

Women’s Pole Vault — 1:43 p.m. ET
Just like the Diamond League season opener in Doha, the field has the top five from the last year’s worlds, led by Americans Katie Moon and Sandi Morris, the gold and silver medalists. Moon is the world leader this year indoors and outdoors, though she no-heighted at last Saturday’s Los Angeles Grand Prix. Come August’s worlds, she will look to become the first woman to repeat as world champ in the pole vault in 16 years. Morris, who was third in Doha, eyes her first global outdoor title after four silvers between the Olympics and worlds.

Women’s Long Jump — 2:42 p.m. ET
A gathering of the world’s most accomplishes active jumpers — Olympic and world champion Malaika Mihambo of Germany, Olympic and world medalist Ese Brume of Nigeria — and the top Americans — Quanesha Burks and Tara Davis-Woodhall. They’re all chasing 7.08 meters, the world’s best leap this year recorded by Jamaican Ackelia Smith, a University of Texas sophomore.

Men’s 5000m — 3:06 p.m. ET
Field includes Olympic 5000m champion Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda, Olympic 10,000m champion Selemon Barega of Ethiopia and world silver medalist Jacob Krop of Kenya as well as reigning U.S. 5000m and 10,000m champions Grant Fisher and Joe Klecker. Cheptegei, the world record holder, was ninth at last July’s worlds and since has strictly raced on the roads and in cross country.

Men’s 100m — 3:39 p.m. ET
The entire podium from last year’s worlds meets here: Kerley and countrymen Marvin Bracy-Williams and Trayvon Bromell. It’s a similar field to last Sunday, when Kerley prevailed by five hundredths over South African Akani Simbine. Simbine is back, as is Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala, who is the world’s fastest man this year (9.84) but was third in Rabat.

Women’s 1500m — 3:49 p.m. ET
Kenyan Faith Kipyegon, a double Olympic and double world champion, ran the world’s fastest time of 2023 at the Diamond League opener in Doha on May 5. Then last weekend, four different Ethiopians ran faster. Kipyegon figures to be faster in Florence than she was in Doha given the addition of Brit Laura Muir, the Olympic silver medalist and world bronze medalist, in her outdoor season debut.

Correction: An earlier version of this story reported that Francique is based in Texas. He moved from Texas to South Carolina.

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

Follow @nzaccardi

More: Olympics

More: Olympics