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Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Sport
- Winnipeg Free Press
McIntosh sets world record in 400M freestyle at Canadian Swimming Trials
VICTORIA – Swimming star Summer McIntosh of Toronto set a world record in the 400-metre freestyle event on Saturday while competing in the Bell Canadian Swimming Trials in Victoria. McIntosh posted a time of three minutes, 54.18 seconds at Commonwealth Place to establish the new mark. She trimmed 1.20 seconds off the 2023 record set by Australia's Ariarne Titmus. She beat the other swimmers in Victoria by more than 13 seconds. The Toronto teenager celebrated her fourth career long-course world record by slapping the water twice with her right hand then pumping her fist. It was an unusual show of emotion from the usually stoic 18-year-old. 'You can see my outburst of emotion because I was really not expecting that time,' said McIntosh. The 400 free was her first-ever world record when she swam 3:56.08 at the 2023 Trials, but Titmus lowered the mark to 3:55.38 at world championships later that year. McIntosh finished behind Titmus for silver at last summer's Paris Olympics to go with the gold medals she won in the 200 and 400 individual medley and 200 butterfly. 'Just seeing the time, after two years of really pushing my hardest every day and training, not seeing the results. It is just all that energy and anger, blood, sweat and tears built up. Having an amazing swim is just really satisfying,' McIntosh said. She also holds the 400 IM world record, plus the 400 free, 200 butterfly and 400 IM in the short course pool. 'I knew my training has been really strong these past couple of months,' said McIntosh, who won the Northern Star Award as Canada's Athlete of the Year for 2024. 'I knew I was able to do something special.' Ella Jansen of Burlington, Ont., finished second in 4:07.36, under the AQUA A qualifying time of 4:10.23, good enough to be selected to Team Canada for the World Aquatics Championships July 26-Aug. 3 in Singapore. It was also a big night for Calgary native Cole Pratt, who trains at the High Performance Centre in Vancouver. After battling through years of injuries the 22-year-old returned to the top of the podium, winning the men's 100-metre backstroke in 54.27. That was below the Swimming Canada secondary standard of 54.48, earning him selection to his first national team since 2021. 'That was a really long time coming,' said Pratt, who competed at the Tokyo 2020 Games but missed qualifying for Paris due to shoulder, neck and back injuries. 'Coming back to this was really hard. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to quit every day. I stuck with it and now I'm here.' Para swimmer Nicholas Bennett showed he had collected no dust after taking a break from the sport. The S14 swimmer with the Red Deer Catlina Swim Club won the men's 100-metre multi-class breaststroke in 1:05.13. 'I took a little bit of a mental health break, so we're just working on getting our strength back,' said the native of Parksville, B.C., who won three medals at the Paris Paralympics and was named co-flag-bearer for the closing ceremony. In other races, Kylie Masse of Lasalle, Ont., an Olympic medallist and world champion, cruised to victory in the women's 100-metre backstroke in 58.18 seconds. Finishing on her heels was Taylor Ruck of Kelowna, B.C., in 58.93. Masse was surprised with her time, which was faster than the 58.29 she swam at the Paris Olympics where she was fourth in the 100. 'I haven't really processed it but I'm really happy,' said Masse, who has a chance to continue her streak of winning at least one medal at every major international championships and Games since 2015. 'This year has been different, just taking a little bit of a step back but at the same time still putting in the work. I just feel like I have a different perspective on the sport. I'm really grateful to be here.' Ruck posted the third-best 100 back time of her career and her fastest in six years. 'I had no expectations,' said the three-time Olympian. 'I touched, looked at the time and was very excited and happy with what I saw.' Two-time Olympian Mary-Sophie Harvey of Trois-Rivières, Que., experienced a first when she won the women's 200-metre breaststroke in 2:23.40. Paris Olympian Sophie Angus, who trains at the High Performance Centre in Ontario, was second in 2:24.84. Both swimmers were under the AQUA A qualifying time of 2:25.91. For Harvey, who trains with CAMO in Montreal, it was her first victory at a trials since she started attending the events in 2012. 'It's kind of crazy,' she said. 'I never thought that would be the first one. I'm pretty pleased with how I am feeling in the water right now, considering I'm not fully rested for this week.' Meanwhile, Ethan Ekk earned selection to his first-ever senior national team, winning a close men's 400 free in 3:49.57. That was just 0.06 seconds ahead of Jordi Vilchez of the Barrie Trojans, and under the Swimming Canada secondary standard. 'That was a very hard race, I can't lie. That last 50 was a battle for all of us,' said Ekk, 18, a Tallahassee, Fla., native whose parents are from Vancouver. 'I was aware of them the whole race. It wasn't until that last 50 I just put my head down and didn't know where anybody was at. I kind of just closed my eyes and tried to move as fast as I could,' Ekk said. 'I heard the announcer say 'Ethan Ekk,' and I was like 'Yes!' I was so pumped and excited and I'm so happy to represent Canada.' Oliver Dawson of the Grande Prairie Piranhas won the men's 200-m breaststroke in 2:11.25. The 17-year-old set a national age group record and earned selection to the world championships team by being under the Swimming Canada secondary standard. In other Para swimming events, Ali Diehl, an S9 swimmer who trains with the Prince Albert Sharks, won the women's multiclass 100-m breaststroke in 1:24.44. Aly Van Wyck-Smart of Toronto, who trains with Whitby Swimming, took the women's 50-metres S2 event in 1:47.31. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 7, 2025.
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Sport
- Miami Herald
Becoming Caitlin Clark: How the Fever Star Shifted the WNBA Landscape
This excerpt from Becoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar by Howard Megdal is reprinted with the permission of Triumph Books. For more information and to order a copy, please Caitlin Clark broke women's basketball. In the best possible way here. But also, in ways that are deeply confounding to Clark and those around here. Because Sheila Johnson, co-owner of the WNBA's Washington Mystics, appeared on CNN and slammed Time Magazine for featuring Caitlin Clark as its athlete of the year. No, really. That happened. "We read Time Magazine where Caitlin Clark was named Athlete of the Year," Johnson said on Dec. 13. "Why couldn't they have put the whole WNBA on that cover and said the WNBA is the League of the Year because of all the talent that we have? Because when you just keep singling out one player, it creates hard feelings." Where to start? This is, of course, sports. There are winners and losers every year, every day, in individual awards, in team accolades. The concept of fairness dictating any man in sports history being honored as Athlete of the Year simply would not be a matter of even basic debate. But this is part of the calibration problem - there have been, as Johnson correctly noted, "so many talented players who have been unrecognized." There have been, as Risa Isard and Nicole Melton documented in their landmark September 2021 study of race in WNBA coverage by ESPN, CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated and as exhibited in WNBA team and league press releases, a disproportionate number of stories about white players compared to the majority Black makeup of the league during the 2020 season. That study did not, however, include Caitlin Clark, nor does it even study the time period in which Clark has been playing college basketball or in the WNBA. It speaks to a truth that is absolutely accepted by a broad base of experts on the subject - that the WNBA's best players have been undercovered historically, and that overwhelmingly the WNBA's best players, just as a majority of all its players, have been Black. Simple reasoning has been assigned in so many of the loudest, least-illuminating conversations about exactly why Caitlin Clark is so prominent in the larger American sports culture now, and what it means about both what came before her and the future of women's basketball. The more singular the explanation, the less useful it is. Even worse are the simple motivations assigned to those on both sides of this discussion - for reference, a significant number of people, particularly those with the most invested in the space, such as players, coaches and executives, don't even view this discussion as one with "opposing sides." But for many of the harshest critics of Clark, it was easy to hear the undercurrent of fear, that the full appreciation for the women's game had come too late for them, the money which follows such fandom simply not trickling down into the sport's remarkable and compelling past. The WNBA has existed as a safe space for marginalized people for nearly three decades because broader American culture so often ignored it. That tradeoff is felt in ways, large and small, that fill the league's players, coaches, executives and long-tenured fans with ambivalence. Everyone with a stake in the league's success is living in that gray area, and not only is the money too good to approach it any other way, with it the chance to finally see what a fully-vested WNBA looks like, but the momentum is so overwhelming the league and its stakeholders couldn't stop this train if they wished to do so. And for the countless, often anonymous newcomers to the women's basketball space who saw Clark being tested like all rookies but only clocked it through the race of the players in the majority Black league doing it, discounting all the incredible stories and women who created the scaffolding of possibility for Caitlin Clark engendered bitterness, fear and anger. And everyone involved in this oversimplification suffered from a failure not just of understanding the racial, gender, historical and competitive context, but so often a failure to understanding that when Caitlin Clark had opened these doors to the broader audience, it represented a chance for others to follow. Caitlin Clark did it first, but is doing it in a way that is precisely designed for the opposite of Clark existing as a one-off phenomenon. She is a beginning, not a culmination. And none of this means that Caitlin Clark is being overcovered now. If it is true that Sue Bird, for instance, received disparate media coverage relative to her greatness, or compared to, say, Sylvia Fowles - the former I'd argue is debatable, the latter is not, with the final seasons of the league's best-ever point guard in Bird and best-ever center in Fowles receiving deeply unequal treatment across television broadcasts and column inches alike - it did not lead to, in the case of Fowles or Bird, the kind of dramatic leaps in audience we have seen from Caitlin Clark in 2024. Clark is different. And there is no counterfactual in the current game: we cannot know what would have happened if Caitlin Clark, but Black, had built her fan base and audience at Iowa, then taken her precision passing and 30-footers to the WNBA. But we do have a historical comp. Frequently, the comparison is made between Clark and her rivalry with Angel Reese and the elevation of the NBA during Magic Johnson and Larry Bird's ascension from college basketball to the pros. After all, more than 35 million people watched the Michigan State-Indiana State national championship game in 1979 featuring the two stars, and the NBA reached a dramatic new level of popularity by the end of their careers. The problem is that, unlike with Clark, it didn't happen anything like right away. (There are other problems with this comparison, too: Magic and Bird were both immediate stars of contending teams, Bird's Celtics winning 61 games, Magic's Lakers winning it all, while Reese's stardom did not translate into a playoff appearance for the Chicago Sky.) The NBA Finals remained on tape-delay broadcast several seasons into both of their pro careers - the clinching win by Johnson's Lakers in the 1980 NBA Finals was preempted by many CBS Network affiliates in favor of The Incredible Hulk, The Dukes of Hazzard and Dallas. By 1984, CBS showed just ten NBA games, nationally, all regular season long. But the actual comp here for Clark also entered the league in 1984, coinciding with TBS purchasing the rights to a national TV cable package: Michael Jordan. Within two years, a dramatic expansion of games, even the slam dunk contest - biggest attraction, Michael Jordan - helped a rising tide of NBA ratings, Jordan's Bulls helping to lead the way, not quite by as much of a lead over the Celtics, Lakers and other teams as Clark just experienced, but notable just the same. To this day, the four most-watched NBA Finals of all time took place in the 1990s, and all featured Jordan's Chicago Bulls. Those ratings fell after Jordan retired, only starting to approach them once more when LeBron James reached the apex of his rivalry with Steph Curry in 2016 and 2017. James was honored with the Time 2020 Athlete of the Year. The apex of these viewership trends correlate not to a generic rising tide. It is when deeply compelling stars make games must-watch. That is the company Clark finds herself in after a single season. The audience tells us so. Time has only been naming an Athlete of the Year since 2019, but Sports Illustrated has honored someone in this way since 1954. In 1991? It was Michael Jordan. If there are any contemporaneous accounts of anyone suggesting the entire NBA should have received the award instead of Jordan in 1991 or James in 2020, I was unable to find them. I'd further note that when Sheila Johnson's Mystics won the WNBA title in 2019, playing home games in a sold-out but entirely-too-small 4,200-seat Entertainment and Sports Arena, she celebrated her team with, among other things, a massive championship ring. Only the Mystics, the team that won the title, received this ring. Not the entire WNBA. And in 2024, the Mystics moved four home games from ESA to Capital One Arena, where the NBA's Washington Wizards play. One of those games, with Angel Reese's Chicago Sky, drew 10,000 fans. Another, with Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner's Phoenix Mercury, drew 12,586. The other two, against Caitlin Clark and the Fever, drew 20,333 and 20,711. Put another way: Clark's two visits to play the Mystics in 2024 drew 41,044 fans, almost half of what Washington's entire 2023 home slate drew: 87,813 fans. "There were so many times where it felt like if a call was made against the other team, people were cheering, which typically in an away environment, you're not getting positive feedback from the crowd," Clark's Fever teammate, Lexie Hull, told me. "But this year, that happened several places, so feel very fortunate about that." But how does one reconcile it all? It's complicated, and evaluating the ways in which race has held the league back and acting and appreciating the progress that has followed through that prism is not the same thing as pretending it isn't happening at all or that the league as a whole is not benefiting from Caitlin Clark's ability to maximize this moment made possible by pioneers in her home state and trailblazers in the WNBA alike. Knowing bad-faith actors have entered the WNBA space intent on using Caitlin Clark's presence to attack Black women of the league while at the same time embracing how many new fans have arrived to love and appreciate her and so many others in the WNBA. And the extra pressure on her opponents, who are forced to simultaneously answer a disproportionate amount of questions about a player who isn't even on their own team in most cases, who are competing at the demanding level asked of anyone in the WNBA, but if that effort leads to a foul deemed unnecessary by Clark's vociferous fan base - with the ugliest manifestations of that passion curdled by racism - players were subjected to cruel, inhuman taunts, even death threats. Every bit of that discordant mix is something Caitlin Clark is hyper-aware of, the calm in this sea of madness, able to hold two disparate ideas in her head at the same time in ways that so many who are paid to analyze failed at verbalizing all year long, each of these failures from someone with a megaphone only further complicating the degree of difficulty for Clark, her teammates and her opponents alike, ratcheting up the tension further. This article was originally published on as Becoming Caitlin Clark: How the Fever Star Shifted the WNBA Landscape . Copyright ABG-SI LLC. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a registered trademark of ABG-SI LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Hall of Famer Joe Thomas is guest speaker for Central Ohio High School Sports Awards
Hall of Famer Joe Thomas pumps his fist as he walks on stage to announce the Cleveland Browns' second-round pick during the 2025 NFL Draft at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The 2024-25 Central Ohio High School Sports Awards program is happy to announce Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe Thomas as the guest speaker for its live event Wednesday, June 18, at Upper Arlington High School. A first-ballot hall of fame selection, Thomas cemented himself as one of the most accomplished and most decorated athletes to ever step foot on an NFL field. Selected third overall by the Cleveland Browns in the 2007 NFL Draft, Thomas became one of just five players to be selected to the Pro Bowl in each of his first 10 seasons. His 10,363 consecutive snaps played is the longest streak in history. Advertisement Thomas was also the only player in Browns history to earn the team's Walter Payton Man of the Year Award multiple times (2010, 2012, 2016). Following an 11-year career, the NFL ironman decided to retire from the league. Before joining the Browns, Thomas was an All-American at Wisconsin, earning honors as the nation's best interior lineman. Central Ohio High School Sports Awards: See all winter Athlete of the Year nominees The Central Ohio High School Sports Awards are part of the USA TODAY High School Sports Awards program. An avid outdoorsman, Thomas formerly co-hosted 'Outdoors Ohio' on SportsTime Ohio and enjoys hunting, fishing and farming. He could be seen on the NFL Network's pregame and postgame shows for every Thursday Night Football game in 2019, as well as NFL Network's coverage of such events as the Super Bowl, NFL Scouting Combine and NFL draft. Advertisement In 2024, Thomas coached with the Munich Ravens in the European League of Football. Thomas is a partner in several Mission BBQ franchises. Central Ohio High School Sports Awards: See all fall Athlete of the Year nominees A native of Brookfield, Wisconsin, Thomas and his wife, Annie, reside in Middleton, Wisconsin, with their four children. The 2024-25 Central Ohio High School Sports Awards are part of the USA Today High School Sports Awards program. Tickets are on sale now and can be obtained here. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY High School Sports Wire: Central Ohio High School Sports Awards: Meet this year's guest speaker
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Caitlin Clark lands first Sports Illustrated cover
Indiana Fever teammates Kelsey Mitchell, Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark and DeWanna Bonner appear on the June cover of Sports Illustrated. (Credit: SI) Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark will cover Sports Illustrated for the first time with the release of the magazine's June 2025 WNBA preview issue. Sports Illustrated confirmed to cllct Thursday the issue is the first print cover for Clark, who has previously appeared on digital covers for the publication. Advertisement For the magazine's 'Fever Dream' cover, Clark appears alongside teammates Aliyah Boston, DeWanna Bonner and Kelsey Mitchell. Inside, the magazine features a dive into the Fever's rapid rebuild around Clark and its improved roster beyond the former No. 1 overall pick. In a video shared to the team's social media channels Thursday, the Fever surprised the cover athletes with a first look at the magazine. 'That is fire,' Clark says during the reveal. 'Just beautiful. Beautiful work of art. I love it. That's sick.' The cover stands as a key moment for Clark and her collectibles market, with magazine covers from publications such as Sports Illustrated rapidly growing in popularity in recent years. Advertisement Though the cover is Clark's first for SI, the Fever guard has appeared on multiple covers of SLAM. Clark also covered TIME when she was named the publication's Athlete of the Year for 2024. Clark's first SLAM cover came in 2024, with a pull-out poster included in issue No. 249. That magazine, which featured Clark as an Iowa Hawkeye, has been graded by CGC more than 250 times. A 9.9 example of the magazine, which is the highest in CGC's census, is set to sell at Goldin later this month. Sports Illustrated covers, especially first appearances for key athletes and iconic photographs, have long been coveted among collectors. Advertisement To date, the record for any single Sports Illustrated issue is the $126,000 paid at Heritage in 2023 for a CGC 9.8 example of Michael Jordan's 1984 'A Star is Born' cover, which featured Jordan on the magazine for the first time as a professional. Earlier this year, a collection of every Sports Illustrated issue from its debut in 1954 through 2023 sold for $158,600 at Heritage. Clark's cover is the second for a WNBA star in recent months after Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese covered the magazine's '50 Most Influential Figures in Sports' issue in October 2024. That cover was the second for Reese with Sports Illustrated following an appearance on the publication's 'Money Issue' in October 2023, which covered the new era of NIL. Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture. He was previously the Collectibles Editor at Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on X and Instagram @benmburrows.
Boston Globe
23-04-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
‘It is truly heartbreaking': Maisey O'Donnell was a two-time state champion diver for Concord-Carlisle, and so much more
She was quiet and kind; a two-time state champion and straight-A student who never bragged about it. She displayed a show-don't-tell example of excellence. 'She was the model that every coach would want for their program,' Chirico said Wednesday. Advertisement O'Donnell, 18, died Tuesday from injuries suffered in a Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Their SUV collided with a tractor trailer that was making a U-turn in a paved median on Highway 98, about 10 miles west of Panama City, Fla. The driver of the trailer was uninjured. The Florida Highway Patrol was investigating the crash as of Wednesday afternoon. O'Donnell was an All-American diver for Concord-Carlisle. When the Globe's All-Scholastic teams are published in early May, she will be honored as the Athlete of the Year for girls diving for the Advertisement In February at MIT, Maisey O'Donnell won the MIAA North sectional diving crown for the second straight year. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff As a sophomore at the state meet, she flubbed a major part of her routine, losing by 2 points. As a junior, she won by 2 points. At the state meet at Boston University last month, she scored 457.6 points, 45 ahead of second place. 'For a swimmer,' Chirico noted, 'that would be like lapping the field. She probably could have sat down on her last dive and said, 'I'm done. Try and catch up.' ' Related : Chirico, a diving coach for more than 45 years, is a judge for NCAA meets and the national director for AAU Diving. He said O'Donnell, who planned to attend Williams, was one of the best divers in the country and would have been a star in college. 'She was already at the Division 3 national level,' Chirico said. 'I'm pretty sure she would have made the NCAA nationals [as a freshman]. She wouldn't have been far away from making the finals.' Maisey O'Donnell came 2 points shy of winning a state title as a sophomore, then came back and claimed it as a junior and senior. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff Williams is a swim and dive power. The Ephs' women finished sixth at the NCAA's Division 3 national championships in March, and have won 21 of the last 24 NESCAC titles. There are some 60 men's and women's swimmers on a college team, with a handful of those spots reserved for divers. A selective school like Williams is looking for the ideal mix of academic and athletic prowess. Williams coach Steve Kuster said O'Donnell — 'an outstanding diver, a committed student, and most importantly, a truly wonderful person' — had precisely the right attributes. Advertisement 'We were incredibly fortunate to get to know her through the recruiting process and were so excited about the energy, talent, and character she was going to bring to our team this fall,' Kuster said. 'It is truly heartbreaking and our hearts go out to her family, friends, teammates, and all who loved her.' Maisey O'Donnell was planning to dive at Williams, and her diving coach said she was more than ready to compete at the national level. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff O'Donnell competed the last five years for Boston Area Diving, one of New England's premier clubs. They traveled across the country for meets and spent countless hours in and around the pool. Chirico called the loss 'heartbreaking, tragic, and senseless.' 'The little kids looked up to her not only because she was good, but she was kind,' Chirico said. 'A lot of people who reach the higher levels are not like that. They're focused on themselves, and she wasn't. 'We're a family. Our diving family was hit hard. I've heard from parents that some of the kids cried all day yesterday about it. 'We will all miss her terribly and will never forget her.' Matt Porter can be reached at
