Gymnast’s joyful routine is a happy alternative to putting on that grim ‘game face’ in a business where smiling is, well, frowned uponBetween Brexit and Blue Monday – the most depressing day of the year, aka this Monday– it’s not always been easy of late to sustain the self-satisfied, privileged-white-male grin that greets you in my byline picture. It is perhaps these ambient feelings of dread that have sent me for solace, again and again, to a video of an American university student doing a gymnastics floor routine. The two-minute clip of 21-year-old Katelyn Ohashi tumbling, flipping and pretzeling to cheesy, nightclub staples has had more than 60 million views this week. It’s a blast of concentrated positivity and good...
Three years after they were kicked out, the USA have had their member status restored and a new governing body has big ideas for the progression of the game for both men and womenWas that a whiff of fatted calf we could smell this week? The USA finally returned to the cricketing fold, three years after being kicked out of the ICC for behaviour unbecoming an associate member, and the whole affair had a slight feel of the prodigal son about it.“The International Cricket Council today welcomed USA Cricket as its 105th Member, in what is a historical milestone for the governing body established in 2017,” beamed the official press release, as champagne corks popped across the Atlantic. The use...
Also featuring Australian Open memories, Sébastien Loeb at the Dakar Rally and the joy of drones in sport1) Cody Parkey was left feeling like the loneliest man in the world after watching his last-gasp potentially game-winning field goal bounce off the upright and crossbar in the Chicago Bears’ playoff defeat by the Philadelphia Eagles (keep an eye on the mascot in the background, too). Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by Parkey’s supposed misfortune. He has a knack when it comes to finding the woodwork. Here he is clattering the goal-frame four times from four kicks in a match last November. And here are those doinks immortalised in Tecmo Super Bowl. Parkey still has some way to go before he matches...
Midfielder is looking towards the World Cup in France while her husband, Zach, has his eyes on a repeat Super BowlAlmost a year ago the United States women’s team kicked off what would become an undefeated year with a 5-1 win over the Euro 2017 runners-up, Denmark.Having fallen behind to a Nadia Nadim goal, the USA equalised through Alex Morgan before the midfielder Julie Ertz put the 2015 World Cup champions ahead to accelerate the turnaround. Related: Women’s Super League: talking points from the weekend’s action Related: Sheffield United Women player faces sack if racism claims are proved Continue reading...
The NFL is trying to push diversity in its coaching ranks but the league’s widely-praised model for recruiting minorities remains a flawed work-in-progressThe NFL’s annual Black Monday, when teams routinely fire coaches as the regular season ends, left the league with a dwindling number of minority coaches. Of the eight coaches who left their position this season, five were minorities: Steve Wilks, Marvin Lewis, Vance Joseph, Hue Jackson and Todd Bowles. One, Wilks, was fired after only one year on the job.While some of those five may well be replaced by other minority coaches, the firings put the league in a difficult position. Roger Goodell, to his credit, has made the advancement of minority coaches one of the crucial issues...