Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce sizzles at Jamaican Olympic Trials; Omar McLeod stunned

By OlympicTalkJun 27, 2021, 4:25 PM EDT

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Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce completed a sweep of the 100m and 200m at the Jamaica Olympic Track and Field Trials, while Rio gold medalist Omar McLeod finished last in the 110m hurdles and is likely missing Tokyo.

Fraser-Pryce, the 2008 and 2012 Olympic 100m champion who came back from childbirth to win the 2019 World 100m title, finished trials Sunday by winning the 200m in a personal-best 21.79 seconds. She won the 100m on Friday in 10.71 seconds.

Fraser-Pryce ranks No. 1 in the world this year in the 100m with a 10.63 from June 5, making her the second-fastest woman in history behind Florence Griffith Joyner. American Sha’Carri Richardson is second in 2021 at 10.72.

Fraser-Pryce ranks No. 2 this year in the 200m behind Gabby Thomas, who won the U.S. Olympic Trials on Saturday in 21.61, making her the second-fastest in history behind Griffith Joyner.

At 34, Fraser-Pryce can become the oldest individual Olympic flat sprint champion in history, according to Olympedia.org. In 2019, she became the first mom to win an Olympic or world 100m title in 24 years.

Also Sunday, McLeod finished last and will miss the Tokyo Games should the Jamaican federation follow usual policy and take the top three finishers.

McLeod, dealing with cramps, hit the first hurdle square with his lead foot and lost enough momentum that he never got back into the race. Video is here.

Ronald Levy won in 13.10 seconds, followed by Damion Thomas (13.11) and Hansle Parchment (13.16). McLeod slowed before the last hurdle and crossed in 16.22.

McLeod followed his 2016 Olympic title by winning the 2017 World title. At 2019 Worlds, he stumbled to last place after hitting a hurdle in the final while slowed by a hamstring injury, and was later disqualified for falling into the lane of Orlando Ortega.

McLeod is the second-fastest man in this Olympic cycle behind 2019 World champion Grant Holloway. Holloway ran 12.81 seconds at the U.S. Olympic Trials on Saturday, .01 off Aries Merritt‘s world record. McLeod ran 12.90 in 2017. Russian Sergey Shubenkov is the only other man to break 13 seconds since Rio.

Two other Jamaican sprint stars join Fraser-Pryce on the Tokyo team. Elaine Thompson Herah, who swept the 100m and 200m in Rio, finished third in both events this weekend (10.84, 22.02).

Shericka Jackson, the Rio Olympic 400m bronze medalist, moved down and took second in the 100m (10.82) and 200m (21.82) and ranks third in the world in both races this year.

Yohan Blake, the join-second-fastest man in history, finished second in the 100m (10.01) and the 200m (20.18) behind Tyquendo Tracey (10.00) and Rasheed Dwyer (20.17). For its first Olympics since Usain Bolt‘s retirement, Jamaica has zero men in the top 10 in the world this year in the 100m or the 200m.

Danielle Williams, the fastest 100m hurdler since the start of 2019, failed to make the Jamaican Olympic team outright for a second straight time. She was fourth in Sunday’s final, five years after crashing at Trials as reigning world champion. Puerto Rico’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn is the only one of the four fastest women since the start of 2019 in line to compete at the Tokyo Games.

Stalwarts Veronica Campbell-Brown and Asafa Powell will not be on the Olympic team, either. Campbell-Brown, the 2004 and 2008 Olympic 200m champ, retired. Powell, the 100m world-record holder before Bolt, did not enter Olympic Trials.

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what happened.. pic.twitter.com/s2X5EujnIC

— Omar McLeod✨ (@Warrior_omz) June 27, 2021

IOC recommends how Russia, Belarus athletes can return as neutrals

By OlympicTalkMar 28, 2023, 8:45 PM EDT

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The IOC updated its recommendations to international sports federations regarding Russian and Belarusian athletes, advising that they can return to competitions outside of the Olympics as neutral athletes in individual events and only if they do not actively support the war in Ukraine. Now, it’s up to those federations to decide if and how they will reinstate the athletes as 2024 Olympic qualifying heats up.

The IOC has not made a decision on the participation of Russian or Belarusian athletes for the Paris Games and will do so “at the appropriate time,” IOC President Thomas Bach said Tuesday.

Most international sports federations for Olympic sports banned Russian and Belarusian athletes last year following IOC recommendations to do so after the invasion of Ukraine.

Bach was asked Tuesday what has changed in the last 13 months that led to the IOC updating its recommendations.

He reiterated previous comments that, after the invasion and before the initial February 2022 recommendations, some governments refused to issue visas for Russians and Belarusians to compete, and other governments threatened withdrawing funding from athletes who competed against Russians and Belarusians. He also said the safety of Russians and Belarusians at competitions was at risk at the time.

Bach said that Russians and Belarusians have been competing in sports including tennis, the NHL and soccer (while not representing their countries) and that “it’s already working.”

“The question, which has been discussed in many of these consultations, is why should what is possible in all these sports not be possible in swimming, table tennis, wrestling or any other sport?” Bach said.

Bach then read a section of remarks that a United Nations cultural rights appointee made last week.

“We have to start from agreeing that these states [Russia and Belarus] are going to be excluded,” Bach read, in part. “The issue is what happens with individuals. … The blanket prohibition of Russian and Belarusian athletes and artists cannot continue. It is a flagrant violation of human rights. The idea is not that we are going to recognize human rights to people who are like us and with whom we agree on their actions and on their behavior. The idea is that anyone has the right not to be discriminated on the basis of their passport.”

The IOC’s Tuesday recommendations included not allowing “teams of athletes” from Russia and Belarus to return.

If Russia continues to be excluded from team sports and team events, it could further impact 2024 Olympic qualification.

The international basketball federation (FIBA) recently set an April 28 deadline to decide whether to allow Russia to compete in an Olympic men’s qualifying tournament. For women’s basketball, the draw for a European Olympic qualifying tournament has already been made without Russia.

In gymnastics, the ban has already extended long enough that, under current rules, Russian gymnasts cannot qualify for men’s and women’s team events at the Paris Games, but can still qualify for individual events if the ban is lifted.

Gymnasts from Russia swept the men’s and women’s team titles in Tokyo, where Russians in all sports competed for the Russian Olympic Committee rather than for Russia due to punishment for the nation’s doping violations. There were no Russian flags or anthems, conditions that the IOC also recommends for any return from the current ban for the war in Ukraine.

Seb Coe, the president of World Athletics, said last week that Russian and Belarusian athletes remain banned from track and field for the “foreseeable future.”

World Aquatics, the international governing body for swimming, diving and water polo, said after the IOC’s updated recommendations that it will continue to “consider developments impacting the situation” of Russian and Belarusian athletes and that “further updates will be provided when appropriate.”

The IOC’s sanctions against Russia and Belarus and their governments remain in place, including disallowing international competitions to be held in those countries.

On Monday, Ukraine’s sports minister said in a statement that Ukraine “strongly urges” that Russian and Belarusian athletes remain banned.

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Summer McIntosh breaks 400m freestyle world record, passes Ledecky, Titmus

By OlympicTalkMar 28, 2023, 8:10 PM EDT

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Summer McIntosh broke the women’s 400m freestyle world record at Canada’s swimming trials on Tuesday night, becoming at 16 the youngest swimmer to break a world record in an Olympic program event since Katie Ledecky a decade ago.

McIntosh clocked 3 minutes, 56.08 seconds in Toronto. Australian Ariarne Titmus held the previous record of 3:56.40, set last May. Before that, Ledecky held the record since 2014, going as low as 3:56.46.

“Going into tonight, I didn’t think the world record was a possibility, but you never know,” McIntosh, who had quotes from Ledecky on her childhood bedroom wall, said in a pool-deck interview moments after the race.

McIntosh’s previous best time was 3:59.32 from last summer’s Commonwealth Games. She went into Tuesday the fourth-fastest woman in history behind Titmus, Ledecky and Italian Federica Pellegrini.

She is also the third-fastest woman in history in the 400m individual medley and the 11th-fastest in the 200m butterfly, two events she won at last June’s world championships. She is the world junior record holder in those events, too.

MORE: McIntosh chose swimming and became Canada’s big splash

McIntosh, Titmus and Ledecky could go head-to-head-to-head in the 400m free at the world championships in July and at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Titmus is the reigning Olympic champion. Ledecky is the reigning world champion, beating McIntosh by 1.24 seconds last June while Titmus skipped the meet.

The last time the last three world record holders in an Olympic program event met in the final of a major international meet was the 2012 Olympic men’s 100m breaststroke (Brendan Hansen, Kosuke Kitajima, Brenton Rickard).

Ledecky, whose best events are the 800m and 1500m frees, broke her first world record in 2013 at 16 years and 4 months old.

McIntosh is 16 years and 7 months old and trains in Sarasota, Florida, which is 160 miles down Interstate 75 from Ledecky in Gainesville.

McIntosh, whose mom swam at the 1984 Olympics and whose sister competed at last week’s world figure skating championships, is the youngest individual world champion in swimming since 2011.

In 2021, at age 14, she became the youngest swimmer to race an individual Olympic final since 2008, according to Olympedia.org. She was fourth in the 400m free at the Tokyo Games.

NBC Olympic research contributed to this report.

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