U.S. Olympic mixed doubles curling trials preview, TV schedule

By Nick ZaccardiDec 12, 2017, 11:40 AM EST

Siblings Matt and Becca Hamilton already qualified for the Olympics, but this week they’re getting greedy.

The Hamiltons are among eight teams in the U.S. Olympic Trials for mixed doubles curling, a new Olympic event.

Competition runs Wednesday through Sunday, with live games on NBCSN, NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app starting Thursday from Blaine, Minn.

Of the 16 athletes in the field, seven made the traditional U.S. Olympic curling men’s or women’s teams at trials three weeks ago.

That includes the Hamiltons, who are the reigning U.S. champions in doubles. They edged 2016 World bronze medalists Joe Polo and Tabitha Peterson for the national title in March.

Polo and Peterson also made the traditional U.S. Olympic curling teams last month.

If either the Hamiltons or Polo and Peterson win the title in Blaine, they could compete almost every day of the Pyeongchang Olympics if they advance to playoffs. Canada opted not to allow its traditional curling team members to double up in mixed.

Mixed doubles starts the day before the Opening Ceremony and finishes before the traditional curling tournaments begin in Pyeongchang.

The sentimental favorite this week has to be the team of Jamie Sinclair and Korey Dropkin.

Sinclair skipped a team that lost the Olympic Trials finals to Nina Roth three weeks ago. Dropkin was on the team that lost the men’s final to John Shuster‘s rink.

Shuster and Roth are also competing this week with separate partners.

All eight teams will play each other in round-robin with the top four advancing to Saturday’s playoffs.

The top two teams play each other with the winner going to Sunday afternoon’s final. The third and fourth teams play each other with the winner playing the loser of the Nos. 1-2 game in a Sunday morning semifinal.

The winner of Sunday afternoon’s final is the Olympic team.

Mixed doubles games are eight ends with five stones for each team. Traditional curling is 10 ends with eight stones per team. One player throws the first and last rock of the end with the other throwing the three in between.

The full NBCSN broadcast schedule of matches (all times Eastern):

Thursday, 7 p.m.: Monica Walker-Jason Smith vs. Cory Christensen-John Shuster
Thursday, 9:15 p.m.: Nina Roth-Kroy Nernberger vs. Alex Carlson-Derrick McLean
Friday, 4 p.m.: Tabitha Peterson-Joe Polo vs. Vicky Persinger-Jared Zezel
Friday, 6:15 p.m.: Jamie Sinclair-Korey Dropkin vs. Becca Hamilton-Matt Hamilton
Saturday, 10 p.m.: Playoffs
Sunday, 4 p.m.: Final

A full schedule of games is here.

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2023 French Open men’s singles draw

By OlympicTalkJun 7, 2023, 5:18 PM EDT

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The French Open men’s singles draw is missing injured 14-time champion Rafael Nadal for the first time since 2004, leaving the Coupe des Mousquetaires ripe for the taking.

The tournament airs live on NBC Sports, Peacock and Tennis Channel through championship points in Paris.

Novak Djokovic is not only bidding for a third crown at Roland Garros, but also to lift a 23rd Grand Slam singles trophy to break his tie with Nadal for the most in men’s history.

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But the No. 1 seed is Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, who won last year’s U.S. Open to become, at 19, the youngest man to win a major since Nadal’s first French Open title in 2005.

Now Alcaraz looks to become the second-youngest man to win at Roland Garros since 1989, after Nadal of course.

Alcaraz missed the Australian Open in January due to a right leg injury, but since went 30-3 with four titles. Notably, he has not faced Djokovic this year. They meet in Friday’s semifinals.

Russian Daniil Medvedev, the No. 2 seed, was upset in the first round by 172nd-ranked Brazilian qualifier Thiago Seyboth Wild. It marked the first time a men’s top-two seed lost in the first round of any major since 2003 Wimbledon (Ivo Karlovic d. Lleyton Hewitt).

All of the American men lost before the fourth round. The last U.S. man to make the French Open quarterfinals was Andre Agassi in 2003.

MORE: All you need to know for 2023 French Open

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2023 French Open Men’s Singles Draw

IOC board recommends withdrawing International Boxing Association’s recognition

Associated PressJun 7, 2023, 2:30 PM EDT

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The IOC finally ran out of patience with the International Boxing Federation on Wednesday and set a date to terminate its Olympic status this month.

While boxing will still be on the program at the 2024 Paris Games, the International Olympic Committee said its executive board has asked the full membership to withdraw its recognition of the IBA at a special meeting on June 22.

IOC members rarely vote against recommendations from their 15-member board and the IBA’s ouster is likely a formality.

The IOC had already suspended the IBA’s recognition in 2019 over long-standing financial, sports integrity and governance issues. The Olympic body oversaw the boxing competitions itself at the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021 and will do so again for Paris.

An IOC statement said the boxing body “has failed to fulfil the conditions set by the IOC … for lifting the suspension of the IBA’s recognition.”

The IBA criticized what it called a “truly abhorrent and purely political” decision by the IOC and warned of “retaliatory measures.”

“Now, we are left with no chance but to demand a fair assessment from a competent court,” the boxing body’s Russian president Umar Kremlev said in a statement.

The IOC-IBA standoff has also put boxing’s place at the 2028 Los Angeles Games at risk, though that should now be resolved.

The IOC previously stressed it has no problem with the sport or its athletes — just the IBA and its current president Kremlev, plus financial dependence on Russian state energy firm Gazprom.

In a 24-page report on IBA issues published Wednesday, the IOC concluded “the accumulation of all of these points, and the constant lack of drastic evolution throughout the many years, creates a situation of no-return.”

Olympic boxing’s reputation has been in question for decades. Tensions heightened after boxing officials worldwide ousted long-time IOC member C.K. Wu as their president in 2017 when the organization was known by its French acronym AIBA.

“From a disreputable organization named AIBA governed by someone from the IOC’s upper echelon, we committed to and executed a change in the toxic and corrupt culture that was allowed to fester under the IOC for far too long,” Kremlev said Wednesday in a statement.

National federations then defied IOC warnings in 2018 by electing as their president Gafur Rakhimov, a businessman from Uzbekistan with alleged ties to organized crime and heroin trafficking.

Kremlev’s election to replace Rakhimov in 2020 followed another round of IOC warnings that went unheeded.

Amid the IBA turmoil, a rival organization called World Boxing has attracted initial support from officials in the United States, Switzerland and Britain.

The IBA can still continue to organize its own events and held the men’s world championships last month in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.

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2023 French Open Men’s Singles Draw

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