After the 1996 Olympics were over, after her big press tour had ended, Amy Van Dyken went grocery shopping. In the cereal aisle, the six-time gold medalist swimmer saw herself smiling back at her from the rows of Wheaties boxes on the shelves. “I remember just standing there, looking at it, and being like, ‘That’s […]
Professional golfer Alena Sharp started getting “the yips” whenever she would try to putt. She experienced severe anxiety and physical tension that crept up her arms and into her jaw. So she started using a technique called “quiet eye,” which not only improved her aim but also helped her calm her body and mind. In […]
Men’s Olympic sprints traffic heavily in machismo and self-assurance, so an incredulous victor is a rarity on the track. Rarer still is the bewildered champion who hails from a country with no record of producing an event finalist. But there was Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs on Sunday night, telling reporters, “I think I need four […]
The U.S. women’s basketball team, hoping to win its seventh straight gold medal, hasn’t lost an Olympic game in 29 years. The squad has won eight of the 10 Olympic tournaments it has entered, and it plays Australia on Wednesday in Tokyo for a spot in this year’s semifinals. Though the program has dominated the […]
When American gymnast Jade Carey hurdled toward the vault during Sunday’s apparatus final, something was off. She took a little extra shuffle or stutter step as she went into her roundoff onto the springboard. And in the post-flight phase of the vault, we saw the impact of this small misstep: Instead of doing her planned […]