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How to watch overall World Cup champ Mikaela Shiffrin ski this weekend

By Nate ClarkMar 6, 2019, 12:39 PM EDT
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It would seem Mikaela Shiffrin picked the best weekend of the season to take a break after every scheduled event in Sochi, Russia last week had to be cancelled due to adverse weather conditions.

Shiffrin, while training in Italy ahead of this week’s events in the Czech Republic, was still able to make headlines, when her World Cup points total allowed her to clinch her third-consecutive overall title. She has also clinched her fourth-straight slalom crystal globe, and sixth overall, after taking an insurmountable 203-point lead in the standings. 

The women’s World Cup will attempt to get back to racing on Friday with the first run of the giant slalom scheduled for 4:30 a.m. ET. Watch the first run live on OlympicChannel.com or with an NBC Sports Gold Snow Pass. The second run can be seen live on TV and streaming on Olympic Channel and NBC Sports Gold.

After crisscrossing the globe, the ISU Speed Skating World Cup winds up in Utah for the final event of the season. The U.S.’ Brittany Bowe and Joey Mantia, both recently crowned world champions, will close out their seasons on home ice at the site of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games.

For Bowe, she returns to the track where she set the world record in the 1000m not once, but twice in her career, and is closing out a season where she has landed on 12 World Cup podiums.

Watch speed skating from Salt Lake City beginning on Friday at 11:00 p.m. on TV on Olympic Channel.  

If you’re looking to thaw out from all the winter sports action, some of the best international swimmers in the world convene in Des Moines at the second stop on the TYR Pro Swim Series. Look for the U.S.’ 2016 Olympic gold medalists Caeleb Dressel and Kathleen Baker to be in the pool in Iowa. Watch the first of three days of swimming in primetime beginning on Thursday at 8:00 p.m. ET on TV and streaming on Olympic Channel.

ALPINE SKIING WORLD CUP — Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic; Kranjska Gora, Slovenia

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Friday 4:30 a.m. Women’s Giant Slalom (Run 1) OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
7:30 a.m. Women’s Giant Slalom (Run 2) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold
12:00 p.m. Women’s Giant Slalom (Run 2)* NBCSN
Saturday 3:30 a.m. Men’s Giant Slalom (Run 1) OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
4:30 a.m. Women’s Slalom (Run 1) OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
6:30 a.m. Men’s Giant Slalom (Run 2) DELAYED start at 8:30 a.m. Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold
7:30 a.m. Women’s Slalom (Run 2) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold
6:00 p.m. Women’s Slalom (Run 2)* NBCSN
Sunday 4:30 a.m. Men’s Slalom (Run 1) OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
7:30 a.m. Men’s Slalom (Run 2) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold

*Same-day delay

BOBSLED AND SKELETON WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS — Whistler, British Columbia

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Thursday 12:00 p.m. Men’s Skeleton (Run 1) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
1:45 p.m. Men’s Skeleton (Run 2) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
3:30 p.m. Women’s Skeleton (Run 1) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
5:00 p.m. Women’s Skeleton (Run 2) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
11:30 p.m. Men’s and Women’s Skeleton Day 1* NBCSN
Friday 12:00 p.m. Men’s Skeleton (Run 3) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
1:45 p.m. Men’s Skeleton (Final Run) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
3:30 p.m. Women’s Skeleton (Run 3) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
5:00 p.m. Women’s Skeleton (Final Run) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
8:00 p.m. Four-Man Bobsled (Run 1) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
9:30 p.m. Four-Man Bobsled (Run 2) NBCSN NBCSN
Saturday 8:00 p.m. Four-Man Bobsled (Run 3) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
9:30 p.m. Four-Man Bobsled (Final Run) Olympic Channel Olympic Channel

*Same-day delay

BIATHLON WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS — Oestersund, Sweden

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Thursday 10:15 a.m. Mixed Relay Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold
4:00 p.m. Mixed Relay* NBCSN
Friday 10:15 a.m. Women’s 7.5km Sprint Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold
1:00 p.m. Women’s 7.5km Sprint* NBCSN
Saturday 10:30 a.m. Men’s 10km Sprint Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold
Sunday 8:45 a.m. Women’s 10km Pursuit Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold
11:30 a.m. Men’s 12.5km Pursuit Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold

*Same-day delay

CROSS-COUNTRY WORLD CUP — Oslo, Norway

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Saturday 4:00 a.m. Men’s 50km Mass Start Olympic Channel Olympic Channel/NBC Sports Gold
Sunday 6:45 a.m. Women’s 30km Mass Start OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
1:00 p.m. Women’s 30km Mass Start* Olympic Channel

*Same-day delay

FENCING GRAND PRIX — Cairo, Egypt; Budapest, Hungary

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Friday 9:00 a.m. From Cairo, Egypt* Olympic Channel
Sunday 4:00 p.m. From Budapest, Hungary OlympicChannel.com

*Pre-recorded

FREESKI AND SNOWBOARDING TOYOTA U.S. GRAND PRIX — Mammoth Lakes, California

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Friday 12:30 p.m. Snowboarding: Slopestyle NBCSports.com/NBC Sports Gold
4:00 p.m. Freeski: Halfpipe NBCSports.com/NBC Sports Gold
Sunday 12:30 a.m. Freeski: Halfpipe* NBCSN
12:30 p.m. Freeski: Slopestyle NBCSports.com/NBC Sports Gold
4:00 p.m. Snowboarding: Halfpipe NBCSports.com/NBC Sports Gold
11:30 p.m. Snowboarding: Slopestyle* NBCSN

*Encore presentation

NORDIC COMBINED WORLD CUP — Oslo, Norway

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Saturday 3:00 a.m. Men’s HS134 OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
7:30 a.m. Men’s 10km OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold

SKI JUMPING WORLD CUP RAW AIR TOURNAMENT — Oslo, Norway

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Friday 1:30 p.m. Men’s Qualifying OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
Saturday 8:30 a.m. Men’s Team OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
3:00 p.m. Men’s Team* Olympic Channel
Sunday 5:00 a.m. Women’s Individual OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
9:30 a.m. Men’s Individual OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold
3:00 p.m. Women’s Individual* Olympic Channel
4:30 p.m. Men’s Individual* Olympic Channel

*Same-day delay

SNOWBOARDING WORLD CUP — Scuol, Switzerland

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Saturday 7:30 a.m. Parallel Giant Slalom OlympicChannel.com/NBC Sports Gold

SPEED SKATING WORLD CUP — Salt Lake City, Utah

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Saturday 2:20 p.m. World Cup Final Day 1 NBC Sports Gold
11:00 p.m. World Cup Final Day 1* Olympic Channel
Sunday 3:15 p.m. World Cup Final Day 2 NBC Sports Gold
11:00 p.m. World Cup Final Day 2* Olympic Channel

*Same-day delay

SHORT TRACK WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS — Sofia, Bulgaria

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Saturday 8:00 a.m. Day 2 NBC Sports Gold
6:00 p.m. Day 2* Olympic Channel
Sunday 8:00 a.m. Day 3 NBC Sports Gold
6:00 p.m. Day 3* Olympic Channel

*Same-day delay

TYR PRO SWIM SERIES — Des Moines, Iowa

Day Time (ET) Event TV Stream
Thursday 8:00 p.m. Day 1 Olympic Channel Olympic Channel
Friday 1:00 a.m. Day 1* NBCSN
8:00 p.m. Day 2 NBCSN NBCSports.com
Saturday 8:00 p.m. Day 3 NBCSports.com

*Next-day delay

Pole vaulter, 84, sets her sights on more records

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Associated PressMar 22, 2019, 1:01 PM EDT
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BURLINGTON, Vt. — An 84-year-old pole vaulter isn’t putting her pole down anytime soon.

Flo Filion Meiler left Thursday for the World Masters Athletics Championship Indoor in Poland, where she’ll compete in events including the long jump, 60-meter hurdles, 800-meter run, pentathlon and pole vault, for which she’s the shoo-in.

The petite, energetic woman from Shelburne, Vermont, said she feels more like 70 than nearly 85.

“But you know, I do train five days a week. And when I found out I was going to compete at the worlds, I’ve been training six days a week because I knew I would really get my body in shape,” she said last week, after track and field training at the University of Vermont.

But she literally won’t have any competition in the pole vault in the championships, which runs March 24-31 in Torun, Poland. She is the only one registered in her age group, 80-84, for the sport, for which she set a world record at age 80. In the men’s pole vault, nine men are listed as competing in that age group.

Meiler said she the events she likes the best are the hurdles and the pole vault – one of the more daring track and field events, in which competitors run while carrying a fiberglass or composite pole, brace it against the ground to launch themselves over a high bar, and land on a mat.

“You really have to work at that,” she said. “You have to have the upper core and you have to have timing, and I just love it because it’s challenging.”

Meiler is used to hard work. She grew up on a dairy farm, where she helped her father with the chores, feeding the cattle and raking hay. In school, she did well at basketball, took tap and ballroom dancing, and, living near Lake Champlain, she water skied.

Meiler, who worked for 30 years as a sales representative for Herbalife nutritional supplements, and her husband, Eugene, who was a military pilot and then became a financial analyst, together competed in water skiing.

“Many times when I did water ski competition I was the only gal in my age group,” she said.

She’s a relative newcomer to pole vaulting and track and field, overall. At age 60, she was competing in doubles tennis with her husband in a qualifying year at the Vermont Senior Games when a friend encouraged her to try the long jump because competitors were needed.

“That was the beginning of my track career,” she said, standing in a room of her home, surrounded by hundreds of hanging medals. She took up pole vaulting at 65.

Athletics has helped her though some hard times, she said. She and her husband adopted three children after losing two premature biological babies and a 3-year-old. Two years ago, their son died at age 51.

And she desperately misses her training partner, a woman who started having health problems about five years ago and can no longer train. It’s tough to train alone, she said, and she hopes to find a new partner.

“She’s incredibly serious about what she does,” said Meiler’s coach, Emmaline Berg. “She comes in early to make sure she’s warmed up enough. She goes home and stretches a lot. So she pretty much structures her entire life around being a fantastic athlete, which is remarkable at any age, let alone hers.”

And it has paid off, said Berg, an assistant track coach at Vermont.

Berg herself first started following Meiler 10 years ago while she was a student at New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College, watching her at the annual Dartmouth Relays.

“She was like a local celebrity,” she said.

Setting a record at age 80 with a 6-foot (1.8-meter) pole vault at the USA Track and Field Adirondack Championships in Albany, New York, while her husband watched, Meiler said, was one of her happiest days.

“I was screaming, I was so happy,” she said.

The overall world record for women’s pole vaulting is 16.6 feet (5.6 meters), according to the International Association of Athletics Federations.

Meiler turns 85 in June, when she’ll head to the National Senior Games in New Mexico.

That will put her in a new age group, in which she hopes to set even more records.

Meiler’s athletic achievements are remarkable and something to be celebrated, said Dr. Michael LaMantia, director of the University of Vermont Center on Aging.

Pole vaulting clearly isn’t for everyone of her age, but in general, activity should be, LaMantia said.

“She can serve as a role model for other seniors,” he said.

Amateur boxing president steps aside during IOC inquiry

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Associated PressMar 22, 2019, 12:57 PM EDT
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LAUSANNE, Switzerland — With Olympic boxing under investigation by the IOC, the president of the sport’s governing body said on Friday he was stepping aside to let an interim leader take charge.

Gafur Rakhimov sai d he was not resigning as AIBA president, however, and did not call for new elections.

Rakhimov’s status on a U.S. Treasury Department sanctions list as an alleged heroin trafficker is part of an inquiry by an International Olympic Committee-appointed panel.

The panel will update the IOC executive board next week in Lausanne, Switzerland. AIBA could be derecognized by IOC members in June.

The IOC halted planning for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic boxing tournaments and blocked AIBA officials from contacting organizers in Japan.

“The allegations against me were fabricated and based on politically motivated lies,” Rakhimov said. “I trust that the truth will prevail. Nevertheless, I have always said that I would never put myself above boxing, and as president, I have a duty to do everything in my power to serve our sport and our athletes.”

Under AIBA statutes, an interim president is picked from among the five vice-presidents, who include several Rakhimov supporters. The executive committee is due to meet by telephone this weekend. The interim leader can serve only a maximum 365 days before fresh elections, however, meaning that arrangement can’t last through to the Tokyo Olympics.

When Rakhimov was elected last year, his supporters pushed for a plan to allow the president to step aside while still retaining key influence and being able to return at any time, but that was defeated.

It’s not clear if Rakhimov’s departure would be enough to calm the IOC, which has also criticized AIBA over how fights are judged, anti-doping measures, and its debts.

The IOC could try to host an Olympic boxing tournament without AIBA, and some national boxing officials have tried to form a group which could help the IOC stage the event.