Simone Manuel, Nathan Adrian get last shots at Tokyo team at Olympic Trials

By Nick ZaccardiJun 20, 2021, 8:12 AM EDT

Simone Manuel and Nathan Adrian own a combined 44 Olympic and world championships medals. Their Tokyo fates should come down to fractions of a second on the final day of U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials on Sunday.

Manuel and Adrian must finish in the top two of their 50m freestyle finals in Omaha to qualify for the U.S. team.

Each failed to make the final of the 100m free, which Adrian won by .01 at the London Olympics and Manuel tied for gold at the Rio Games, becoming the first U.S. Black female swimmer to take individual gold.

In the 50m free — the splash and dash, the shortest, fastest and usually closest race in swimming — Manuel and Adrian each qualified third into Sunday’s finals.

SWIM TRIALS: Results | TV Schedule | ON HER TURF: Manuel carries unfair burden

Manuel finished ninth in the 100m free on Thursday. Then she disclosed an overtraining syndrome diagnosis in March, taking three weeks out of the pool, and depression.

She was pleased to swim 24.50 seconds in her Saturday semifinal of the 50m free, where she is reigning world champion and the American record holder (23.97).

Only Rio Olympic teammate Abbey Weitzeil (24.27) and 18-year-old Torri Huske (24.45) were faster in the semis. Manuel must beat one of them, plus hold off the other handful in the field.

“I desperately want to be on the team. I feel like I have so much to give this sport, not just in the pool but out of the pool,” Manuel said after being told that Michael Phelps said that the U.S. needs Manuel (and Adrian) on the team (presumably not just for their swimming, but for their leadership and experience). “I just want to see whatever I‘ve got. I want to walk away with my head held high at the end of this meet. Hopefully, it gets me a ticket to Tokyo, but if it doesn’t, I’m proud of myself.”

Adrian’s comeback story is different. It was known going into Olympic Trials that he was no sure thing to qualify in the 100m free, his primary event, even with up to six men going for relay purposes. Adrian, 32, was diagnosed with testicular cancer two and a half years ago and underwent two surgeries.

He entered Olympic Trials ranked eighth in the U.S. in the 100m free since the start of 2019 (though third in 2021). He was 13th in the 100m free semifinals. Adrian’s faster time from prelims, 48.37, would have qualified fifth into the eight-man final.

“I knew that prelims was going to be a lot faster, a lot more difficult than normal, so I probably threw a little bit more emotional energy into prelims than I should have,” he said.

Adrian, who made the last three Olympic teams, since Rio got married and became a father.

“When I had a bad practice before [having a family], it was a little bit of a dagger in the heart,” he said. “Now I sort of go home and I let it go immediately and get to give my wife and my baby a big hug and a kiss.”

PODCAST: Nathan Adrian talks cancer battle on ‘My New Favorite Olympian’

A look at today’s races

Men’s 50m Freestyle FINAL — 8:15 p.m. ET
It looks tougher for Adrian to make the team than Manuel. World champion Caeleb Dressel swam 21.51 in the semis (after a 100m butterfly final) and owns the American record of 21.04. Michael Andrew, one of the most impressive swimmers of the meet who won the 100m breaststroke and 200m individual medley, went 21.55. Adrian, who went 21.78 in semis, hasn’t gone 21.55 or faster since getting bronze at the Rio Olympics.

Women’s 50m Freestyle FINAL — 8:26
Like Adrian, Manuel came in third in semis behind two swimmers who already won events this past week in Weitzeil and Huske. In 2019 alone, Manuel went faster than Huske’s second-place semi time on a total of seven occasions. There’s reason to believe that Huske (and Weitzeil) will go faster in the final, but Manuel certainly can, too. She was hopeful after the semifinals that she can make improvements on her semifinal swim. She will likely need to.

Men’s 1500m Freestyle FINAL — 8:34
Bobby Finke, who won the 800m free, qualified fastest into the final by 3.27 seconds. If Finke wins, and Dressel wins the 50m, then all six men’s freestyles will have been won by current or former University of Florida swimmers. Michael Brinegar, who also made the team in the 800m, was second in the prelims. Jordan Wilimovsky, who made the team in the open-water 10km, was third. The U.S. put no men into the world championships 1500m finals in 2017 and 2019.

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French Open: Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk says crowd ‘should be embarrassed’ for booing her

Associated PressMay 28, 2023, 8:55 AM EDT

Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus (left) and Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine before their French Open first round match./Getty

At first, Aryna Sabalenka thought the boos and derisive whistles coming from the French Open crowd were directed at her after a first-round victory Sunday. Instead, the negative reaction was aimed at her opponent, Marta Kostyuk, for not participating in the usual post-match handshake up at the net.

Kostyuk, who is from Ukraine, avoided so much as any eye contact with Sabalenka, who is from Belarus, after the match, instead walking directly over to acknowledge the chair umpire. Sabalenka walked toward the net as if expecting some sort of exchange.

“What happened today, I have to say I didn’t expect it,” Kostyuk said of the crowd. “I did not, but I have no reaction to it. People should be honestly embarrassed, but this is not my call.

“I want to see people react to it in 10 years when the war is over. I think they will not feel really nice about what they did.”

But this is something Kostyuk has been doing whenever she has faced any opponent from Russia or Belarus since her country was invaded by Russia, with help from Belarus, in February 2022.

Perhaps the fans on hand at Court Philippe Chatrier did not know the backstory and figured Kostyuk simply failed to follow tennis etiquette by congratulating the winner after the lopsided result: Sabalenka grabbed six games in a row during one stretch and came out on top 6-3, 6-2.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

“It was a very tough match — I would say tough emotionally,” said the No. 2-seeded Sabalenka, who won her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January.

During an on-court interview in the main stadium, Sabalenka told the spectators she was sure their jeering “was against me, so I was a little surprised, but then I felt your support.”

Before play began on Day 1 of the clay-court tournament, the players did not pose together for the standard photos up at the net after the coin toss to determine who would serve first.

Kostyuk, a 20-year-old who is ranked 39th, won her first WTA title in March at Austin, Texas, by beating a Russian opponent and neither player went to the net afterward that day.

During her pre-tournament news conference on Friday, Sabalenka was asked about the likelihood there would be no handshake on Sunday.

“If she hates me, OK. I can’t do anything about that. There is going to be people who loves me; there is going to be people who hates me,” Sabalenka said then. “If she hates me, I don’t feel anything like that (toward) her.”

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Ryan Crouser breaks world record in shot put at Los Angeles Grand Prix

By OlympicTalkMay 27, 2023, 5:56 PM EDT

Two-time Olympic champion Ryan Crouser registered one of the greatest performances in track and field history, breaking his world record and throwing three of the six farthest shot puts of all time at the Los Angeles Grand Prix on Saturday.

Crouser unleashed throws of 23.56 meters, 23.31 and 23.23 at UCLA’s Drake Stadium. His previous world record from the Tokyo Olympic Trials was 23.37. He now owns the top four throws in history, and the 23.23 is tied for the fifth-best throw in history.

“The best thing is I’m still on high volume [training], heavy throws in the ring and heavy weights in the weight room, so we’re just starting to work in some speed,” the 6-foot-7 Crouser, who is perfecting a new technique coined the “Crouser slide,” told Lewis Johnson on NBC.

Sha’Carri Richardson won her 100m heat in 10.90 seconds into a slight headwind, then did not start the final about 90 minutes later due to cramping, Johnson said. Richardson is ranked No. 1 in the world in the 100m in 2023 (10.76) and No. 2 in the 200m (22.07).

Jamaican Ackeem Blake won the men’s 100m in a personal best 9.89 seconds. He now ranks third in the world this year behind Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala and American Fred Kerley, who meet in the Diamond League in Rabat, Morocco on Sunday (2-4 p.m. ET, CNBC, NBCSports.com/live, the NBC Sports app and Peacock).

The next major meet is the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in early July, when the top three in most individual events qualify for August’s world championships.

Richardson will bid to make her first global championships team, two years after having her Olympic Trials win stripped for testing positive for marijuana and one year after being eliminated in the first round of the 100m at USATF Outdoors.

LA GRAND PRIX: Full Results

Also Saturday, Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico won the 100m hurdles in 12.31, the fastest time ever this early in a year. Nigerian Tobi Amusan, who at last July’s worlds lowered the world record to 12.12, was eighth in the eight-woman field in 12.69.

Maggie Ewen upset world champion Chase Ealey in the shot put by throwing 20.45 meters, upping her personal best by more than three feet. Ewen went from 12th-best in American history to third behind 2016 Olympic champion Michelle Carter and Ealey.

Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic ran the fastest women’s 400m since the Tokyo Olympics, clocking 48.98 seconds. Paulino is the Olympic and world silver medalist. Olympic and world champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas is on a maternity break.

Rio Olympic bronze medalist Clayton Murphy won the 800m in 1:44.75, beating a field that included most of the top Americans in the event. Notably absent was 2019 World champion Donovan Brazier, who hasn’t raced since July 20 of last year amid foot problems.

CJ Allen won the 400m hurdles in a personal best 47.91, consolidating his argument as the second-best American in the event behind Olympic and world silver medalist Rai Benjamin, who withdrew from the meet earlier this week.

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