Brittany Bowe wins world champs 1000m, tying for most titles at that distance

By OlympicTalkFeb 13, 2021, 11:11 AM EST

Nearly one year to the day after a world championships experience that Brittany Bowe called “a nightmare,” she rebounded to win the 1000m world title on Saturday in the famed Thialf arena in Heerenveen, Netherlands, setting and tying records along the way.

With her 10th ISU World Single Distances Championships medal, Bowe became the most decorated U.S. woman in the history of the event, breaking her nine-medal tie with now-retired Heather Bergsma.

She is also now tied with German Anni Friesinger and Canadian Christine Nesbitt as the winningest women at this distance with three world titles apiece. Bowe also won in 2015 and 2019.

“This was my goal coming into the bubble, winning a world title, and thankful that I could come out with that today,” Bowe told Dutch broadcaster NOS.

Bowe, who turns 33 on Feb. 24, won with a time of 1:14.28, 0.54 seconds ahead of 2020 world champion Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands; the two raced head to head in the penultimate pair. Russian Elizaveta Golubeva was third in 1:14.848 for her sixth career world bronze medal. This is Bowe’s fifth 1000m world championship medal, one shy of Friensinger’s record six; Bowe’s span eight years, while Friesinger’s first and last were six years apart.

“You always want to be paired with the best and the most competitive and she is the reigning world champion; she’s got the target on her back,” Bowe said. “I pulled the nice inner lane today and skated a nice race, and happy to come out with that one.”

The American entered the 2020 world championships, held at her home rink outside of Salt Lake City, as the favorite. Though she was coming off a disappointing sixth-place performance at a World Cup, just prior to that Bowe had won seven straight 1000m World Cup races, the longest streak by any U.S. woman. After placing eighth in her best distance, she would leave the event with no medals for the first time since 2012.

“It was a great year overshadowed by great disappointments those two weekends, in particular the one weekend with the world championships, so it definitely relit my fire” Bowe told NBCSports.com entering this season. “I’m more determined than ever.”

This year, Bowe was all smiles as she crossed the finish line, raising both hands in the air with her index fingers pointed to the sky before she continued to pump her right fist in celebration of what she knew was a victory.

Bowe has been firing on all cylinders in both the 1000m and 1500m this season. With a shortened season due to the pandemic, only two World Cups were held – also in Heerenveen – and Bowe won both distances both times, continuing to improve throughout. Her 0.54 seconds over Leerdam at the world championships is her greatest 1000m winning margin this season.

The women’s 1000m was the fifth individual race contested this week and Bowe was the first of this season’s World Cup winners to also claim gold at worlds.

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Football takes significant step in Olympic push

By OlympicTalkMar 29, 2023, 2:18 PM EDT

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Football took another step toward possible Olympic inclusion with the IOC executive board proposing that the sport’s international federation — the IFAF — be granted full IOC recognition at a meeting in October.

IOC recognition does not equate to eventual Olympic inclusion, but it is a necessary early marker if a sport is to join the Olympics down the line. The IOC gave the IFAF provisional recognition in 2013.

Specific measures are required for IOC recognition, including having an anti-doping policy compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency and having 50 affiliated national federations from at least three continents. The IFAF has 74 national federations over five continents with almost 4.8 million registered athletes, according to the IOC.

The NFL has helped lead the push for flag football to be added for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Flag football had medal events for men and women at last year’s World Games, a multi-sport competition including Olympic and non-Olympic sports, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Football is one of nine sports that have been reported to be in the running to be proposed by LA 2028 to the IOC to be added for the 2028 Games only. LA 2028 has not announced which, if any sports, it plans to propose.

Under rules instituted before the Tokyo Games, Olympic hosts have successfully proposed to the IOC adding sports solely for their edition of the Games.

For Tokyo, baseball-softball, karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were added. For Paris, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were approved again, and breaking will make its Olympic debut. Those sports were added four years out from the Games.

For 2028, the other sports reportedly in the running for proposal are baseball and softball, breaking, cricket, karate, kickboxing, lacrosse, motorsports and squash.

All of the other eight sports reportedly in the running for 2028 proposal already have a federation with full IOC recognition (if one counts the international motorcycle racing federation for motorsports).

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Helen Maroulis stars in wrestling documentary, with help from Chris Pratt

By Nick ZaccardiMar 29, 2023, 10:05 AM EDT

Getty

One of the remarkable recent Olympic comeback stories is the subject of a film that will be shown nationwide in theaters for one day only on Thursday.

“Helen | Believe” is a documentary about Helen Maroulis, the first U.S. Olympic women’s wrestling champion. It is produced by Religion of Sports, the venture founded by Gotham Chopra, Michael Strahan and Tom Brady. Showing details are here.

After taking gold at the 2016 Rio Games, Maroulis briefly retired in 2019 during a two-year stretch in which she dealt with concussions and post-traumatic stress disorder. The film focuses on that period and her successful bid to return and qualify for the Tokyo Games, where she took bronze.

In a poignant moment in the film, Maroulis described her “rock bottom” — being hospitalized for suicidal ideations.

In an interview, Maroulis said she was first approached about the project in 2018, the same year she had her first life-changing concussion that January. A wrestling partner’s mother was connected to director Dylan Mulick.

Maroulis agreed to the film in part to help spread mental health awareness in sports. Later, she cried while watching the 2020 HBO film, “The Weight of Gold,” on the mental health challenges that other Olympians faced, because it resonated with her so much.

“When you’re going through something, it sometimes gives you an anchor of hope to know that someone’s been through it before, and they’ve overcome it,” she said.

Maroulis’ comeback story hit a crossroads at the Olympic trials in April 2021, where the winner of a best-of-three finals series in each weight class made Team USA.

Maroulis won the opening match against Jenna Burkert, but then lost the second match. Statistically, a wrestler who loses the second match in a best-of-three series usually loses the third. But Maroulis pinned Burkert just 22 seconds into the rubber match to clinch the Olympic spot.

Shen then revealed that she tore an MCL two weeks earlier.

“They told me I would have to be in a brace for six weeks,” she said then. “I said, ‘I don’t have that. I have two and a half.’”

Maroulis said she later asked the director what would have happened if she didn’t make the team for Tokyo. She was told the film still have been done.

“He had mentioned this isn’t about a sports story or sports comeback story,” Maroulis said. “This is about a human story. And we’re using wrestling as the vehicle to tell this story of overcoming and healing and rediscovering oneself.”

Maroulis said she was told that, during filming, the project was pitched to the production company of actor Chris Pratt, who wrestled in high school in Washington. Pratt signed on as a producer.

“Wrestling has made an impact on his life, and so he wants to support these kinds of stories,” said Maroulis, who appeared at last month’s Santa Barbara Film Festival with Pratt.

Pratt said he knew about Maroulis before learning about the film, which he said “needed a little help to get it over the finish line,” according to a public relations company promoting the film.

The film also highlights the rest of the six-woman U.S. Olympic wrestling team in Tokyo. Four of the six won a medal, including Tamyra Mensah-Stock‘s gold.

“I was excited to be part of, not just (Maroulis’) incredible story, but also helping to further advance wrestling and, in particular, female wrestling,” Pratt said, according to responses provided by the PR company from submitted questions. “To me, the most compelling part of Helen’s story is the example of what life looks like after a person wins a gold medal. The inevitable comedown, the trauma around her injuries, the PTSD, the drive to continue that is what makes her who she is.”

Maroulis, who now trains in Arizona, hopes to qualify for this year’s world championships and next year’s Olympics.

“I try to treat every Games as my last,” she said. “Now I’m leaning toward being done [after 2024], but never say never.”

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