Hanna Faulhaber, Troy Podmilsak win titles as freestyle ski, snowboard worlds end

By OlympicTalkMar 4, 2023, 10:30 AM EST

Hanna Faulhaber became the first American woman to win a freeski world title, taking the halfpipe on the final day of the world championships in Bakuriani, Georgia, on Saturday.

Later, fellow 18-year-old Troy Podmilsak became the first American man or woman to win a world title in ski big air, which made its Olympic debut last year.

Faulhaber, who was sixth in halfpipe at the Olympics, earned her first top-level victory with a 95.75-point third and final run to overtake X Games champion Zoe Atkin of Great Britain. She landed a 900 and back-to-back 720s. Canadian Rachael Karker took bronze.

“It’s unbelievable,” Faulhaber said, according to U.S. Ski and Snowboard. “I’m really at a loss of words right now. I shed a couple tears, and wow. That is really the only word I can use to describe it right now — wow.”

China’s Eileen Gu, the Olympic and world champion the previous two years, missed worlds after suffering a season-ending MCL strain, ACL strain and bone bruise in a heavy training crash at X Games practice in January.

Faulhaber has been on skis since age 2 1/2, starting in moguls, then inspired to take up halfpipe by watching the X Games near her Colorado hometown.

Before Faulhaber, all nine U.S. women to win an individual freestyle skiing world title did it in aerials or moguls, the last being aerialist Ashley Caldwell in 2017. In the freeskiing events of halfpipe, slopestyle and big air, American woman racked up eight silver or bronze medals dating to 2005 before Faulhaber’s breakthrough.

Podmilsak scored 91.25 and 96.50 on his first two runs in the three-run big air final, enough for gold over Austrian Lukas Muellauer. Olympic champion Birk Ruud of Norway earned bronze. He landed a triple cork 2160, according to U.S. Ski and Snowboard.

“Actually nothing was going through my head; I kind of went into this zone where I didn’t actually exist,” said Podmilsak, who made his major championships debut at last month’s X Games, finishing sixth. “I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t tired. I was just nothingness.”

Frenchwoman Tess Ledeux earned her second world title in ski big air in the absence of Olympic champion Gu.

In men’s ski halfpipe, American Alex Ferreira added his first world championships medal (bronze) to his Olympic silver and bronze and two X Games titles.

Canadian Brendan Mackay won with a 97.25-point third and final run that included a 1620, followed by Finland’s Jon Sallinen (95.75) and Ferreira (93.00). American David Wise, a two-time Olympic champ, was ninth.

Austrian Anna Gasser earned her second world title in snowboard big air to go along with her two Olympic gold medals and 2018 X Games crown. In January, Gasser, 31, withdrew moments before the X Games big air after suffering what she called a mild concussion in slopestyle the day before.

Japan’s Taiga Hasegawa, 17, won the men’s snowboard big air for his first global championships podium. Olympic champion Su Yiming of China didn’t enter worlds.

The ski and snowboard big air finals were moved up from Sunday to Saturday due to weather forecasts.

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

Follow @nbcolympictalk

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).

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

Follow @nbcolympictalk

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.”

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

Follow @nzaccardi

More: Olympics

More: Olympics

More: Olympics