Nilofar Bayat begins rebuilding her life in Spain after days of fear for her life under Taliban rule
When the Taliban entered Kabul, Nilofar Bayat, the captain of Afghanistan’s female national wheelchair basketball team, knew she had to get out.
“There were so many videos of me playing basketball. I had been active in calling for women’s rights and the rights of women with disabilities,” she said. “If the Taliban found out all of this about me, I knew they would kill me.”
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Men’s keirin - Kenny (GBR) rode a superb race to nick the semi on the line. Glaetzer (AUS) defended his place well throughout to come second. Both progress into the final. Carlin (GBR) misses out in fourth.
Men’s keirin - Semi-final time for the men’s keirin. Up first we have Glaetzer (AUS), Carlin (GBR), and Kenny (GBR) gunning for a spot in the top three in a field of six.
Continue reading...He stunned basketball fans and transformed HIV awareness by announcing his diagnosis in 1991. Thirty years on, he discusses his relationship with Anthony Fauci, the meaning of money and why he’s still optimistic
On 7 November 1991, a press conference in Inglewood, California, brought America to a standstill. Against a black-draped backdrop, dressed in a black suit, white shirt and multicoloured tie, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, spoke calmly into a single microphone and told the world that he had been diagnosed with HIV.
Cameras flashed and reporters clamoured to ask questions, but Johnson, National Basketball Association (NBA) superstar and one of the world’s most revered athletes, appeared unfazed as he announced his immediate retirement. Had he grappled with his own mortality? When had he found out? How had he acquired the virus? What would he do next?
Continue reading...An announcer for a live stream of an Oklahoma girls’ high school basketball game cursed and called one team by a racial epithet as the players knelt during the national anthem, then suggested his diabetes was to blame for the episode in a statement expressing his regret.
The incident occurred Thursday before the Norman High School-Midwest City quarter-final game in Sapulpa as the Star-Spangled Banner began to play. The broadcasters told their listeners on the NFHS Network stream they would return after a break and then one, apparently not realizing the audio was still live, used an expletive and the epithet as the Norman players knelt.
Continue reading...Crash that killed basketball star, his daughter, and seven others launched lawsuits and prompted state and federal legislation
Safety investigators said on Tuesday a pilot flew through clouds last year in an apparent violation of federal standards and likely became disoriented just before the helicopter crashed, killing the basketball star Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others.
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Continue reading...The ex-Chicago Bulls star won new fans in the acclaimed Netflix documentary. He talks about his special relationship with MJ – and basketball’s equality problem
Born in Arkansas in 1965, the youngest of 12 children, Scottie Pippen is one of basketball’s all-time greats. He played alongside Michael Jordan for the Chicago Bulls when they dominated the sport in the 1990s, winning six NBA championships. (He also won two Olympic gold medals.) That period, the Bulls’ and, in particular Jordan’s, extraordinary achievements are the focus of the 10-part, critically acclaimed Netflix docuseries The Last Dance, which has been a major hit in 2020.
You and Michael Jordan seemed to have a special bond in the film. When you were both on your game, it seemed like the team was going to win. Was that the case?
Yeah, that relationship, we established that we felt like that in the late 80s, playing against the Pistons, just starting to grow and mature and have each other’s backs. We grew up together and we defended each other. That respect we had on the court, that competitiveness we took through to the top – it was special. That was the respect we had for each other, because we had to be on the court to do what we did. We had to be dominant.
Two of America’s best athletes are getting married after Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird announced their engagement.
The couple boast an impressive list of achievements. Rapinoe has won two World Cups and an Olympic gold medal with the US national team, and picked up the Ballon d’Or Féminin for the world’s best women’s player in 2019. Bird, meanwhile, is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. This month, the 40-year-old won her fourth WNBA title to go alongside her four Olympic gold medals with Team USA. She has also carved out a successful career in Russia, winning five EuroLeague titles with Spartak Moscow and UMMC Ekaterinburg.
Continue reading...On an extraordinary day for the NBA, the Milwaukee Bucks boycotted Game 5 of their playoff series against the Orlando Magic in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, leading the NBA to reschedule all other Wednesday night playoff games.
Milwaukee’s baseball team, the Brewers, also confirmed they would not play their game scheduled for Wednesday evening.
Continue reading...The pilot of the helicopter that crashed in thick fog, killing Kobe Bryant and seven other passengers, reported he was climbing when he was actually descending, federal investigators said in documents released on Wednesday.
Ara Zobayan radioed to air traffic controllers that he was climbing to 4,000 feet to get above clouds when, in fact, the helicopter was plunging toward a hillside where it crashed northwest of Los Angeles. The report by the National Transportation Safety Board said Zobayan may have “misperceived” the pitch of the aircraft, which can happen when a pilot becomes disoriented in low visibility. Experts said shortly after the crash that the path of the flight indicated Zobayan had lost his bearing.
Continue reading...It appears that The Last Dance backlash has arrived. ESPN aired the final episode of the wildly popular Michael Jordan documentary on Sunday but one of the NBA superstar’s former teammates has already taken issue with the show.
Horace Grant, who won three titles alongside Jordan with the Chicago Bulls, said the documentary was edited to make Jordan look better. Some critics have pointed out that the fact that The Last Dance was co-produced by one of Jordan’s companies was glossed over.
Continue reading...US basketball legend wore the Nike trainers in his rookie season in the NBA and are featured in hit documentary The Last Dance
A pair of sneakers worn by basketball legend Michael Jordan in his rookie season in the NBA have fetched a record $560,000 in an online auction, Sotheby’s said.
The autographed Air Jordan 1s, designed for Jordan in 1985 and the first-ever signature sneakers, were expected to fetch between $100,000 to $150,000 in the auction that closed on Sunday.
Continue reading...The pilot flying NBA legend Kobe Bryant and seven others, including his daughter, to a youth basketball tournament did not have alcohol or drugs in his system, and all nine sustained immediately fatal injuries when their helicopter crashed into a hillside outside Los Angeles in January, according to autopsy reports released late on Friday.
The reports by the Los Angeles county coroner’s office provide a clinical but unvarnished look at the brutality of the crash.
Continue reading...The former NBA star’s wife is struggling to deal with loss of both her husband and daughter
Vanessa Bryant has said in an Instagram post that she was both grieving and angry over the loss of her husband, NBA star Kobe Bryant, and 13-year-old Gianna in a helicopter crash last month.
Vanessa Bryant, 37, has made few public appearances since the crash that killed her husband, daughter and seven others and said in the social media post that she had been “reluctant” to put her feelings into words.
Continue reading...Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, has died in a helicopter crash. He was 41.
Bryant was on board the helicopter along with four others when it crashed at 10am local time near Calabasas, 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, in foggy weather. The crash ignited brushfires, making it hard for rescue crews to get close to the site. There were no reported survivors, and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, is also believed to have died in the crash. Bryant had lived in the area for most of his life and often used helicopters to beat Los Angeles’ heavy traffic.
Continue reading...The NBA, and much of America, was in shock on Sunday after Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest basketball players in history, died in a helicopter crash. He was 41.
Bryant was on board the helicopter with eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, when it crashed at 10am local time near Calabasas, 30 miles north-west of downtown Los Angeles, in foggy weather. The crash ignited brushfires, making it hard for rescue crews to get close to the site. There were no survivors. Bryant, who lived in the area for most of his life often used helicopters to beat Los Angeles’ heavy traffic, and on Sunday he was taking Gianna to play in a basketball game at his academy outside the city.
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...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...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”.
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