Latest news with #FlorenceGriffithJoyner
BBC News
6 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
What if... the season came down to improvement?
As the dust settles on the 2024-25 Premier League season, we have been taking a look at some of the alternative ways the the table could have of us will have been there in school. It was not always about being the best, but about being better. Not trying to beat the others' scores or times, but about beating your sport too, it is why personal bests exist. It is a way of measuring your own improvement against what has gone before - we can't all be Usain Bolt and Florence if the Premier League season was all about how you compared to the campaign before, who would have come out on top?Well, there is one clear 29 points more than they had in 2023-24, Nottingham Forest would have been lifting that may not have finished the season quite as they hoped having spent so much time in the Champions League spots, but having narrowly avoided relegation a year ago, this shows the sheer scale of the improvement this nearest challenger on this basis would have been 56 points, they were three points short of their best ever Premier League tally, but having flirted with relegation last time out, it made for a more enjoyable season this time Bournemouth and Fulham may have just missed out on European adventures in the real league, but they are also teams who can be happy with the improvements they are showing as now well-established top-flight despite the chaotic nature of Chelsea since the new ownership came in, they too can look to steady the other end of the scale (or table), it is a very different question whether the traditional 'big six' teams is still relevant, given how others have broken that mould in recent if the season was based on improvement, four of those six would have been at the dropped-off in the league nearly as much as Forest improved. Manchester City had a high bar to reach, but a torrid spell proved costly. Manchester United have set multiple unwanted club records, while Arsenal struggled to maintain a real challenge for the say beware the wounded tiger, and it is hard to see all these sides having the same difficulties next season, but they will not have it all their own way with those teams that are on the up.*All data from Opta and only teams who were in the league in 2023-24
Wall Street Journal
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘The Front Runner' Review: Steve Prefontaine, Racing Through Life
Track and field shimmers with names that transcend the sport—Jesse Owens, Florence Griffith Joyner, Usain Bolt. But perhaps no name carries the power and poignancy of Steve Prefontaine, the gritty, charismatic distance runner from Oregon whose life ended in a car crash in 1975. Only 24 at the time, he was already a celebrity—a brash media star whose career presaged the commercial-endorsement boom for sports figures, a rebel who decried the exploitation of amateur athletes, a leg-churning whippet whose desperate exertions thrilled the roaring crowds. By conventional standards, Prefontaine would not be considered among the greats; he holds no world records and won no Olympic medals. But scrutiny of his life, in books and film, highlights how unconventional he was—a point reinforced in Brendan O'Meara's well-crafted 'The Front Runner: The Life of Steve Prefontaine.' Sidestepping the deification of his subject, Mr. O'Meara humanizes Prefontaine in his vexing contradictions, buoyant spirit and brutal competitiveness.
