Christian Coleman wins Millrose Games 60m after Noah Lyles disqualified

By OlympicTalkFeb 11, 2023, 7:50 PM EST

Christian Coleman won the Millrose Games 60m after meet headliner Noah Lyles was disqualified for a false start after flinching in the blocks.

Coleman, the world record holder at 6.34 seconds from 2018, prevailed in 6.47 on a day where three American records fell in longer events, including the world’s second-fastest men’s indoor mile in history.

Lyles was allowed to race the 60m under protest of the false start and had the second-fastest time of 6.53, getting beat off the start by Coleman and never bridging the gap.

Coleman, the world’s fastest 100m sprinter in the last Olympic cycle who missed the Tokyo Games while banned for missing drug tests, celebrated with a hushing motion to his lips.

“There’s just been a lot of talk and a lot of chatter recently, even though I haven’t really been on social media,” Coleman, who had a rivalry with Lyles in 2018 and 2019, told Citius. “It’s hard to not hear and see everything. I feel like [it was] a hyped-up race coming in, too.”

The Millrose Games is the most prestigious annual indoor international track and field meet, taking place at the Armory in New York City.

MILLROSE GAMES: Full Results

Lyles and Coleman will likely meet again in the 100m at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in July, where three spots for August’s world championships are available. Separate from those three spots, Fred Kerley has a bye into worlds as reigning world champion.

Coleman was sixth in the 100m at last year’s worlds in defense of his title from 2019.

Lyles, the reigning world 200m champion, ran his 60m personal best of 6.51 at last Saturday’s New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston. He was pleased with 6.53 at Millrose.

“If I can get the race in, that’s all that matters,” Lyles said of still running after the disqualification. “I don’t care if I win or if I lose. If I can work on what I need to work on, that’s all that matters.

“Everybody knows I’m just here to play around. I’m not a 60-meter runner.”

Also at Millrose, Yared Nuguse ran the second-fastest indoor mile in history, an American record 3:47.38. Nuguse, who withdrew before the Tokyo Olympics with a strained right quadriceps, just missed Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha‘s world record of 3:47.01 from 2019.

Abby Steiner, who won 4x100m and 4x100m relay golds at last year’s worlds, ran the third-fastest indoor 300m in history, an American record 35.54.

Alicia Monson broke Karissa Schweizer‘s American indoor 3000m record by 65 hundredths in clocking 8:25.05. Monson was 13th in the Tokyo Olympic 10,000m.

Aleia Hobbs took the women’s 60m in 7.04 seconds, a week after clocking 7.02 to prevail in Boston.

Last month, Hobbs clocked a personal-best 6.98 to become the third-fastest American in history after Gail Devers and Marion Jones (both 6.95). Hobbs, 26, placed sixth in the 100m at last July’s world championships.

The 60m, 300m, mile and 3000m are not Olympic distances.

Tokyo Olympic champ Katie Moon (née Nageotte) won the pole vault with a 4.81-meter clearance, beating fellow American Bridget Williams and 2016 Olympic gold medalist Katerina Stefanidi of Greece. Last week in Boston, Moon was fourth with a 4.45-meter clearance.

The indoor season continues next week with the USA Track and Field Championships in Albuquerque. Coverage airs Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com/live, the NBC Sports app and Peacock.

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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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