TRENDING GYMNASTICS | SWIMMING | TRACK AND FIELD

Getty Images

Usain Bolt set to join Australian soccer team

By Nick ZaccardiJul 17, 2018, 6:11 AM EDT
Leave a comment

More: Olympics

U.S. Olympic, USA Gymnastics leaders set for another Senate hearing Christian Coleman Christian Coleman edges Ronnie Baker, Noah Lyles in Rabat 100m Lindy Remigino Lindy Remigino, 1952 Olympic 100m champion, dies at 87

Usain Bolt agreed in principle to join an Australian soccer team in the nation’s top division, the Central Coast Mariners, a soccer agent said Tuesday.

“The deal between the Mariners and Usain Bolt, in principle, has been agreed, subject to a couple of benchmarks, namely a trial and, of course, some marquee funds support from the FFA [Australian Football Federation],” agent Tony Rallis said in a radio interview. “They understand that he has to go through six weeks of a trial.”

The eight-time Olympic champion Bolt has long harbored dreams of playing pro soccer.

Since retiring last summer, the 31-year-old Jamaican has trained alongside club teams in South Africa, Jamaica and Norway, plus had a much-publicized visit with Borussia Dortmund in March. Bolt and Dortmund share an apparel sponsor in Puma.

“This bloke’s an ambitious athlete,” Rallis said. “You know, the A-League needed a hero, and we got Superman. … If he’s competitive, he will lift our A-League profile, he will create dreams of young people and he will give the A-League a profile no amount of money can buy,”

The Central Coast Mariners, based in Gosford in New South Wales, won four matches and lost 15 last season, finishing 10th in the 10-team A-League. There is no relegation in Australian soccer.

“There’s still a lot of work to do in regards to understanding exactly how the deal would work out and how things would look, but things are very positive at the moment,” Central Coast Mariners CEO Shaun Mielekamp said on Australia’s Seven Network. “It looks like a good six-week trial period that we would be able to facilitate. If all goes well, who knows, he might be lighting up the A-League this season.”

The 2018-19 regular season starts in October.

“It would only be big if he can play and if he can go really, really well,” Mielekamp said. “If he comes, and he’s not up to the level, then it actually has a detrimental effect.”

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

VIDEO: Coleman wins all-star 100m in Rabat

Christian Coleman edges Ronnie Baker, Noah Lyles in Rabat 100m

By Nick ZaccardiJul 13, 2018, 5:38 PM EDT
Leave a comment

More: Olympics

U.S. Olympic, USA Gymnastics leaders set for another Senate hearing Usain Bolt set to join Australian soccer team Lindy Remigino Lindy Remigino, 1952 Olympic 100m champion, dies at 87

Who is currently the world’s fastest man? Christian Coleman staked another claim Friday, but just barely.

Coleman won a Diamond League 100m in Rabat in 9.98 seconds, edging countrymen Ronnie Baker by .006 and Noah Lyles by .01 into a slight headwind. The field included the world’s four fastest men since the Rio Olympics — Coleman, Baker, Lyles and Mike Rodgers (fourth in 10.01).

Nobody has been faster since Rio than Coleman’s 9.82 last year. At 2017 Worlds, he finished between Justin Gatlin and Usain Bolt. Then last winter, he ran faster than the 60m world record three times.

But Coleman was beaten by Baker at consecutive May meets before taking all of June off from competition with a hamstring injury. Rabat marked his first race in 44 days.

“This is a relief, finally getting a win under my belt,” Coleman said. “I look at this as kind of my re-season opening. It’s the first time I came into a meet with full confidence in my leg.”

Lyles, the U.S. 100m champion in Coleman’s absence, nearly came from behind to steal the win. It’s no surprise as Lyles is known for his 200m prowess. He would have won a 105-meter race on Thursday.

Full Rabat results are here.

Christian Coleman

In other events, Olympic and world 800m champion Caster Semenya ran the fastest women’s 1000m in nearly 16 years, clocking 2:31.01 in the non-Olympic event.

World champion Mariya Lasitskene‘s 45-meet high-jump win streak ended as she finished third behind Bulgarian Mirela Demireva. Lasitskene’s last loss had been on June 23, 2016, according to Tilastopaja.org.

Kenyan Hellen Obiri beat a strong 5000m field in 14:21.75. Ethiopian-born Dutchwoman Sifan Hassan broke the European record for second place in 14:22.34, while U.S. Olympian Molly Huddle was 10th, one minute behind Obiri.

Olympic gold medalist Brianna McNeal won the 100m hurdles in 12.51, leading a U.S. sweep of the top four with Sharika Nelvis (12.58), Christina Manning (12.72) and Dawn Harper-Nelson (12.86). McNeal has the fastest time this year of 12.38. World-record holder Kendra Harrison was not in the field.

U.S. Olympic champion Matthew Centrowitz faded to 10th in a 1500m won by Moroccan Brahim Kaazouzi in 3:33.22. Centrowitz clocked 3:35.17, the fastest time by an American this year by .88 of a second.

Olympic 400m champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas won the 200m in 22.29 seconds, overtaking Brit Dina Asher-Smith. U.S. champion Jenna Prandini was third in 22.60, one tenth ahead of rising Harvard senior Gabby Thomas, who won the Lausanne Diamond League 200m on July 5. Nigerian Blessing Okagbare-Ighoteguonor holds the fastest time in the world this year of 22.04.

Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha won the 3000m by 1.33 seconds in 7:32.93, eight days after he was disqualified from a 5000m for nearly pulling another runner down by his shorts in Lausanne. American Paul Chelimo, the Olympic 5000m silver medalist, was fourth.

World champion Sam Kendricks of the U.S. won the pole vault with a 5.86-meter clearance. Rival and world-record holder Renaud Lavillenie was shockingly eighth with three fails at 5.60 meters.

The Diamond League moves to Monaco next Friday, with love coverage on Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA and NBC Sports Gold.

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

MORE: Olympic stars demand IAAF rescind testosterone rule

Lindy Remigino, 1952 Olympic 100m champion, dies at 87

Lindy Remigino
Manhattan Athletics
By Nick ZaccardiJul 12, 2018, 4:06 PM EDT
Leave a comment

More: Olympics

U.S. Olympic, USA Gymnastics leaders set for another Senate hearing Usain Bolt set to join Australian soccer team Christian Coleman Christian Coleman edges Ronnie Baker, Noah Lyles in Rabat 100m

Lindy Remigino, who went from fifth at the NCAA Championships to winning the Olympic 100m in about a month in 1952, died at age 87 on Wednesday, according to Manhattan College, his alma mater.

Remigino, then 21, earned gold at the Helsinki Games in the closest Olympic sprint final in history (video here), according to Olympic historians.

The first four finishers were given times of 10.4 seconds, and a photo was needed to determine the medalists.

“I wasn’t nervous,” Remigino said later, according to Manhattan College. “I was used to running in front of a lot of people at Madison Square Garden. I got off to a good start, and I had the lead by the 55-meter mark. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to win this thing,’ but I leaned too early. I leaned 25 meters from the finish and thought I blew it.”

Remigino (wearing bib 981 in the above photo) was awarded gold ahead of Jamaican Herb McKenley and Brit McDonald Bailey.

“Herb and I were very close,” Remigino said, according to Manhattan College.  “I said to him, ‘Herb, I think you won this thing,’ but then they brought out the photo and showed us that I had won.”

Remigino’s automatic timing result was 10.79 seconds, .01 ahead of McKenley and just .12 faster than the last-place finisher in the six-man race. The 1996 Olympic women’s final saw Gail Devers and Merlene Ottey go one-two in the same time of 10.94 seconds, but the rest of that field was more separated than the 1952 men’s 100m.

Remigino later was part of the U.S. 4x100m team that also took gold in Helsinki.

Remigino had finished fifth in the 100 yards at the NCAA Championships the previous month and failed to qualify for the AAU Championships final. He surprisingly made the U.S. Olympic team by finishing second at trials behind Art Bragg.

Remigino, named after Charles Lindbergh, went on to coach Hartford Public High School in Connecticut to 31 state team titles with 157 individual state champions. He was inducted into at least 10 halls of fame, including the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2017.

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

MORE: Tokyo 2020 Olympic torch relay schedule unveiled

Lindy Remigino
The photo finish of the 1952 Olympic men’s 100m.