Donald Trump was booed loudly and a chant of 'lock him up' rose up against him when he was shown on the video screens in the Nationals Park stadium, where he attended game five of the World Series between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros.
Trump left the game with one inning to go
Continue reading...Donald Trump once claimed he was courted by several major league baseball clubs in his youth but turned them down because they couldn’t offer him enough money. On Sunday, baseball got its revenge.
The President attended Game 5 of the World Series between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros at Nationals Park, a short journey from the White House. When Trump was shown on the video screens in the stadium he was loudly booed by fans. That, perhaps, was predictable: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and both Bushes were all booed while attending baseball games as President. What came shortly afterwards was a little more personal in a city that is heavily Democratic as cries of “Lock him up!” rang out, a reference to the chants about Hillary Clinton used at Trump’s rallies in the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections.
Continue reading...Sport is a serious business. Ping-pong diplomacy sped US detente with China; Richard Nixon followed the path of American table tennis players. Now some joke that basketball could yet spell the end for bilateral relations, as Beijing seeks to punish the NBA over comments on the protests in Hong Kong and US politicians hit back at the league’s attempts to appease.
China’s use of economic power for political purposes has rarely been quite so visible. It began when the general manager of the Houston Rockets sent a tweet including the words “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong” – where authorities are cracking down harder than ever on the four-month anti-government movement and violence is growing. The team’s Chinese sponsors and partners cut ties. Matters soon spiralled.
Continue reading...Simone Biles continued to stake her claim as one of the most dominant athletes of the generation as she bulldozed all competition to win her fifth world championships individual all-around gold medal in Stuttgart with a score of 58.999. She took with a cushion of 2.1 points, the biggest of her career, as Xijing Tang of China won silver and Russia’s Angelika Melnikova took bronze.
“It means the world to me,” she said afterwards. “For my fifth, that’s kind of unheard of so it was really exciting. But we finished strong and we gave it our all it’s super exciting that we had the opportunity to do this.”
Continue reading...Alberto Salazar, the legendary American distance coach who guided Mo Farah to six world titles and four Olympic gold medals, has been sent home from the world championships in Doha following his four-year ban for doping violations. The US Anti-Doping Agency found that Salazar had been “orchestrating and facilitating prohibited doping conduct” while head coach of the Nike Oregon Project, a group that was initially set up to help US endurance athletes beat the best runners from Africa but later recruited Farah and others from around the world.
Farah, who trained with Salazar from 2010 until 2017, admitted he was happy the investigation had finally concluded. “I’m relieved that Usada has, after four years, completed their investigation into Alberto Salazar,” he said in a statement. “I left the Nike Oregon Project in 2017 but as I’ve always said, I have no tolerance for anyone who breaks the rules or crosses a line. A ruling has been made and I’m glad there has finally been a conclusion.”
Continue reading...The double Olympic champion was denied her bid to escape a coach she says abused and harassed her, exposing a numbingly familiar truth: the system is not set up to support survivors
Kaillie Humphries brought glory to Canada time and again on the world stage, winning a gold medal in the two-woman bobsleigh at the Vancouver Olympics and becoming the first woman ever to successfully defend her title in Sochi four years later. She has challenged gender norms in sport by being one of the first few women to compete in mixed gender racing, then in 2016 drove an all-woman team against men in international competition.
Technically speaking, Humphries is badass, and Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton has adored her. The true north has only started to utter it’s polite disdain since last week when Humphries announced that she wanted to leave the national federation because she had endured verbal and mental abuse from head coach Todd Hays. Humphries declared her intention to switch federations and compete under the American flag moving forward. “I need to be the best athlete I can be and go where it’s safe and where I have an opportunity to continue my career” she said in an interview with CBC Sports. “And unfortunately, that is not with Bobsleigh Canada anymore.”
Continue reading...The International Chess Federation says it has suspended a player at a tournament in France after the man was “caught red-handed using his phone during a game”.
The organization said Friday on Twitter that all the evidence in the case of Igors Rausis had been sent to its ethics committee and that it was “determined to fight cheating in chess”.
Continue reading...Simona Halep played a near-flawless final on Saturday to become the first Romanian woman to win Wimbledon, simultaneously wrecking Serena Williams’s bid for a record-equalling 24th major, a dream that grows more unlikely by the day.
The 37-year-old American – still one short of Margaret Court’s all-time tally – smiled graciously at the end but will have been crying inside, while Halep beamed like a lighthouse in celebration of a 6-2, 6-2 drubbing in only 56 minutes of perhaps the game’s greatest player.
Continue reading...US goal celebrations were a talking point yet again during Tuesday’s World Cup semi-final against England. After Alex Morgan scored USA’s second goal of the game, she raised her fingers to her lips, miming a sip of tea.
Alex Morgan sippin tea #USAvENG pic.twitter.com/oyiyeaFzKQ
Continue reading...• American youngster wins 6-4, 6-4 on Court One
• Glimpse of future as five-time SW19 champion beaten
The 15-year-old American Cori Gauff produced one of the biggest opening-day upsets in Wimbledon history on Monday as she upended five-times champion Venus Williams 6-4, 6-4 in the first round.
The teenager, the youngest player ever to qualify for the main draw, played brilliantly throughout and kept her nerve as she ousted the 39-year-old on Court No 1 in what was her debut performance in a grand slam event.
Continue reading...Toronto police say two people were shot as Toronto Raptors fans packed the city’s downtown to watch the team’s NBA title parade. Police said two people had sustained serious but non-life threatening injuries in the incident. They added that two people had been taken into custody, and the parade was resumed after a short delay.
I’m on the roof of city hall and something is happening. People are running including what looks to be cops and security pic.twitter.com/FEbhw88OqI
Continue reading...It was clear what kind of match this would be a few seconds before the whistle blew. The US put seven attacking players on the halfway line while just three defenders hung back with the goalkeeper. Once the game started, those seven US players sprinted past the Thailand midfield toward the goal. The game largely continued like that, with proceedings taking place almost exclusively in the Thailand half.
Related: Sweden strike late against Chile after torrential rain stops play
Continue reading...Former cycling champion Lance Armstrong has said he “wouldn’t change a thing” about the doping that led to him being stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles, according to details of an interview that will air next week.
NBCSN, owned by NBC Sports Group, said on Thursday it would broadcast a 30-minute interview next Wednesday called Lance Armstrong: Next Stage in which the 47-year-old American discusses his career and the decisions he made.
Continue reading...The NBA playoffs have been swept up in diplomatic drama, with US senator Ron Wyden expressing concern for the safety of Portland Trail Blazers player Enes Kanter if his team play the Toronto Raptors in the NBA finals.
Kanter is a fierce critic of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, calling him the “Hitler of our Century”. The Turkish authorities in turn have accused Kanter of having links with an armed group behind a failed coup in the country in 2016. Last year, Kanter missed a trip to London with his then team the New York Knicks, saying he feared he could be “killed by Turkish spies”.
Continue reading...• American all-time great claims 15th major by one stroke
• Dustin Johnson, Koepka, Schauffele share second
Tiger Woods wins the Masters. If ever five words did not do justice to an outcome …
Let debate now rage as to where this sits in the pantheon of sporting comebacks. Fourteen years after last donning the Green Jacket, 11 years after last winning a major and 24 months after conceding to friends “I’m done” Woods completed a triumph which rates as extraordinary even by his standards. It seemed poetic for the sensational act to transpire at Augusta National, where Woods began altering the shape of golf back in 1997. Twenty two years on a 43-year-old Woods celebrated more wildly than ever before in the company of his mother and children.
Continue reading...Tennis champion describes pay discrepancy between male and female squads as ‘ludicrous’
Serena Williams and other prominent past and present American tennis players have expressed their support for a lawsuit filed by the US women’s national soccer team against their federation alleging gender discrimination in wages and conditions.
All 28 members of the US squad were named as plaintiffs in a federal court in Los Angeles on Friday, International Women’s Day.
Continue reading...The NFL and attorneys for Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid jointly announced on Friday afternoon they have settled a complaint of collusion by the players, who claimed the league’s owners blackballed them because they had protested by kneeling during the pre-game playing of the national anthem.
Related: Did the NFL manage to silence Colin Kaepernick's protest at the Super Bowl?
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And here come the Rams. The Patriots came out to Ozzy Osbourne while the Rams came out to T.I.’s “Bring ‘Em Out.”
The crowd seemed to be on the Patriots’ side here, so this could be a home game type feel for them.
The New England Patriots are taking the field now, we’re getting closer to the kickoff.
Continue reading...In an interview broadcast on the biggest day in the NFL calendar, Donald Trump said he would have a 'hard time' letting his son Barron play American football.
The president made the statement during an interview set to be broadcast on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, hours before Super Bowl LIII kicks off in Atlanta.
Asked if he would be comfortable letting 12-year-old Barron play a sport that has been repeatedly linked to brain trauma injuries, he described it as a 'tough question'.
Continue reading...Cardi B turned down an offer to perform at the Super Bowl, she said, in order to “stand behind” the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who “stood up” for minorities by kneeling down during playings of the pre-game anthem.
Related: Super Bowl half-time show won’t reflect Atlanta’s music industry
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