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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Devon Allen scores first touchdown in six years, celebrates with hurdles

By OlympicTalkAug 21, 2022, 8:05 PM EDT

Getty

Devon Allen made sure his first reception with the Philadelphia Eagles was a memorable one.

Allen, a two-time Olympian taking a break from the 110m hurdles to pursue football, used his speed to snag a 55-yard touchdown pass in the Eagles’ second preseason game Sunday.

Of course, he celebrated by clearing air hurdles. It came six years after Allen’s last touchdown, when he also celebrated by hurdling when at the University of Oregon.

Devon Allen with the hurdle celebration!! #FlyEaglesFly

(Via: @NFL) pic.twitter.com/Ac7WpXCwC8

— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) August 21, 2022

In the time between, Allen turned pro in track, placed fourth in his second Olympics and ran the third-fastest 110m hurdles time in history.

In football, he tore his left ACL and MCL and suffered meniscus damage in a non-contact injury defending a punt return for Oregon on Sept. 17, 2016, seven days after that last touchdown. That was his last game play before this month.

It was the same injury he suffered on the opening kickoff of the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 2015, just to the opposite knee. That redshirt freshman season, he led Oregon with seven receiving touchdowns, was second on the team with 41 catches and third with 684 receiving yards before the injury.

Allen is hoping to join a list of 43 Olympians, including 34 track and field athletes, who played in an NFL regular-season game, according to Olympedia.org. He controversially false-started out of the world track and field championships last month, then went to training camp.

“You watch one of those military movies, a grenade goes off, and their head’s ringing, that’s how I felt in the huddle the first couple weeks,” he said Sunday.

He must get through two cut deadlines, starting with Tuesday’s mandate to get down to 80. The final cut is Aug. 30 down to 53 players.

He said earlier this year that he plans to return to track and field next season, even if he makes the Eagles’ final roster.

“There’s a lot for me to learn, a lot for me to do in order to make the football team,” he said. “I want to get reps. I want to play, but also I appreciate the fact that it’s been six years. It’s not going to come back real quick.”

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What Michael Phelps told the University of Alabama football team

By OlympicTalkAug 16, 2022, 8:18 AM EDT

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Michael Phelps visited the University of Alabama football team for a preseason pep talk, which was shared by the program on social media last week.

Phelps, who took classes while training at the University of Michigan in the mid-2000s and trained for the final year of his career at Arizona State, has football connections. He has counted retired Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis as a close friend.

Phelps considered trying out for his high school football team, but it wasn’t feasible given the time necessary for his burgeoning career in swimming, which for years meant seven-days-per-week training.

The speech transcript:

Well, I’m going to open up with a quote. It’s one of my favorite quotes. “Actions speak louder than words.” That literally is what defines my career. I made my first Olympic team, 15 years old. I got fifth place. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t satisfied. They gave me a piece of paper that said, congratulations, you participated. That piece of paper motivated me for that whole next four years. I said, there’s not a shot in hell, this is ever going to happen again. My very first [Olympic] race, I did not medal. And then in 2012, I had one race I didn’t medal. I can go back and look at those races because I want to make sure that feeling stays with me until the next time I have a chance to get out there to do the same thing again. From 2002 to 2008, guess how many days I took off. In those six years, guess how many days I took off. None. Zero. Why? I wanted something that nobody else had the opportunity to get. I was willing to do more than anybody else on the planet was willing to do. I got the results. I wanted to do it because I wanted that chance. Nobody’s going to give you that chance, right? You’re going to have to earn that chance. That’s all I wanted. I wanted to bust my ass every single day to earn that one chance. And wherever that took me, it took me. Every time I’d go into practice, my coach would say jump. I would say how high, because I knew there were hundreds of thousands of other kids that were doing the same thing. And they were not going to take that opportunity away from me. Y’all have one of the greatest, if not the greatest coach leading y’all every single day. He’s got the answers. But it’s y’all that need to listen or making sure you’re doing everything away from the field. Right? It’s not just what happens here. I can’t tell you that enough. It is not just what happens here. It’s the whole entire picture. You get one chance, right? You get once chance to do something special. Don’t waste it, please.

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