Latest news with #OlympicSummerGames
Los Angeles Times
6 hours ago
- General
- Los Angeles Times
Coliseum, Crypto.com Arena and Long Beach waterfront among 2028 Paralympics venues
Already slated to be the first venue in the world to host events from three different Olympic Summer Games, the Coliseum will help break new ground for the Paralympics in 2028. The iconic stadium is at the center of the first Paralympic Games in L.A. as it hosts the para track and field competition, LA28 announced Tuesday in an updated venue plan that placed 23 sports into their future Paralympic homes. 'This is a momentous occasion for the city of Los Angeles,' para swimmer and Inglewood native Jamal Hill said in an interview with The Times. 'Being a native Los Angeleno, you always hear about this melting pot of Los Angeles and many times, that melting pot, the default is to really thinking like, ethnic or racial or even cultural based. … I think it's really, really beautiful and inclusive now that that melting pot is really starting to cover ability.' The venue plan approved by the International Paralympic Committee places the majority of the Paralympic events in L.A., with additional sites in Long Beach, Carson and Arcadia. With all competition venues within a 35-mile radius, competitors have the opportunity to be housed in one Paralympic village for the first time since Rio in 2016. The unified Paralympic village on UCLA's campus differs from Paris, which had a decentralized plan with Paralympians staying at satellite villages. The 2024 Games, which were the first post-pandemic Olympics and Paralympics, marked the first true Games experience for Hill, who won a bronze medal in the 50-meter freestyle in Tokyo. After dozens of friends and family made the trip to Europe last year, Hill, who finished fifth in Paris, will be saving more seats for his hometown Games in 2028. 'We had 30 people that I know who are going to fly [to Paris],' Hill said. 'There's going to be like 300 people that I know at that swim venue.' Para swimming will take place in the Long Beach Convention Center lot alongside para climbing, which will make its Paralympic debut in 2028. Long Beach will also host shooting para sport in the convention center, sitting volleyball in the Long Beach Arena and para canoe sprint and para rowing at Marine Stadium. Long Beach, which also is hosting 11 Olympic sports, will use the Olympic beach volleyball venue at Alamitos Beach to stage blind football in the Paralympics in a dual-use venue that mirrors the setup in Paris under the Eiffel Tower. The Coliseum, which will also host the Paralympic closing ceremony, anchors an Exposition Park sports zone that includes wheelchair rugby and para badminton at USC's Galen Center. In downtown L.A., the Convention Center will host boccia, para judo, para table tennis, para taekwondo and wheelchair fencing. Across the street, wheelchair basketball will take place in Arena while goalball will be in the Peacock Theater. Venice Beach will have the starting lines for the para triathlon and para marathon. Carson will host para archery at the fields at Dignity Health Sports Park, wheelchair tennis at the tennis center and para cycling track in the Velodrome. Para equestrian will take place at Santa Anita Park. 'The Paralympic Games showcases the highest level of athleticism, skill and endurance and it is important for LA28 to deliver a plan that not only elevates Paralympic sport, but brings it to the next level,' LA28 Chief Executive officer Reynold Hoover said in a statement. Venues for para weightlifting, para cycling road and the course and finish line of the para marathon have yet to be announced. The 2028 Paralympics will run from Aug. 15-27, opening at SoFi Stadium. They follow the 2028 Olympics, which will run from July 14-30. While the Olympics will be in L.A. for a third time, 2028 will mark the city's first Paralympic Games. The international sporting event for athletes with physical disabilities is coming off record viewership numbers in Paris, where the overall live audience grew by 40% compared to Tokyo and by 117% compared to Rio, according to a Nielsen Sports study conducted on behalf of the IPC. NBC reported a record 15.4 million total viewers across its TV and streaming platforms for the Paralympic Games, which followed a similar boost in interest to the Olympics last summer. 'The Olympics and the Paralympics are truly becoming this concurrent and congruent movement which reflects the times that we're in,' Hill said. 'People aren't afraid anymore. They're not ashamed of who they are. They're not ashamed of their disability. They're not afraid to speak out and be seen as different because it's more accepted than ever for us to say, you know what, we're all different.'
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Trump threatens California funding over transgender high school athlete
President Trump threatened Tuesday to revoke federal funding from California over a transgender high school track and field athlete who qualified over the weekend for the state finals, instructing local authorities to block the student from participating. In a post on Truth Social, Trump railed against 16-year-old AB Hernandez, a junior at Jurupa Valley High School in Southern California who won the girls' long jump and triple jump events at the California Interscholastic Federation's Southern Section Masters on May 24, qualifying for the state championships that will take place May 30 – 31. He said Hernandez won 'everything' at the meet and falsely claimed she had previously competed on the boys' team. Hernandez came out as transgender in the eighth grade, her mother, Nereyda, said in an April interview with Capital and Main, a nonprofit news organization in California. 'THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS,' Trump wrote Tuesday. 'Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to.' The order Trump signed in February states that 'it is the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women's sports' and threatens to 'rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.' At a signing ceremony in Washington, Trump said his administration will not allow transgender athletes to compete in the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles. Several Democratic-led states, most notably Maine, have bucked Trump's order, which they say violates state laws against discrimination. The California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports in the state, said in response to Trump's order that it would continue allowing transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their gender identity, consistent with a 2013 law. The Department of Education announced it had opened a Title IX investigation into the organization shortly after. On Tuesday, Trump said he is 'ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow' Hernandez to compete in the state finals next weekend. The White House did not respond to a question about to which state authorities Trump referenced. The president does not have direct authority over local law enforcement. Trump added that he plans to speak Tuesday with California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who, in the debut episode of his podcast, 'This is Gavin Newsom,' in March, said he believes transgender athletes participating in girls' and women's sports is 'deeply unfair.' At a press conference in Modesto, Calif., the following month, Newsom said he would be 'open' to a conversation about limiting trans athletes' participation if it were conducted 'in a way that's respectful and responsible and could find a kind of balance.' A spokesperson for Newsom declined to comment on whether the governor, seen as a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, would speak Tuesday with Trump. Hernandez has for months been the target of protests against transgender girls in girls' sports. At a recent track meet in Orange County, more than two dozen adults, including three local school board members, heckled Hernandez for hours, at one point raising their voices so loud as to cause a false start in another event, Capital and Main reported. 'I'm still a child and you're an adult, and for you to still act like a child shows how you are as a person,' Hernandez told the outlet this month. 'There's nothing I can do about people's actions, just focus on my own.' She said her teammates and most competitors support her. Hernandez is ranked third in California in the triple jump and tied for 13th nationally. At a March meeting of the Jurupa Unified School District Board of Education, Superintendent Trenton Hansen acknowledged the risk of the district losing its funding. 'There is the threat from the federal government to withhold funding, there's threats from the state government to withhold funding if we violate laws,' Hansen said. 'Unfortunately, school districts are placed in the middle of this tug of war. All the information we've received from legal counsel … is that we follow the laws here in California, that executive orders do not carry the weight of the force of law, and that these issues will need to be figured out in the court system.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
27-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump threatens California funding over transgender high school athlete
President Trump threatened Tuesday to revoke federal funding from California over a transgender high school track and field athlete who qualified over the weekend for the state finals, instructing local authorities to block the student from participating. In a post on Truth Social, Trump railed against 16-year-old AB Hernandez, a junior at Jurupa Valley High School in Southern California who won the girls' long jump and triple jump events at the California Interscholastic Federation's Southern Section Masters on May 24, qualifying for the state championships that will take place May 30 – 31. He said Hernandez won 'everything' at the meet and falsely claimed she had previously competed on the boys' team. Hernandez came out as transgender in the eighth grade, her mother, Nereyda, said in an April interview with Capital and Main, a nonprofit news organization in California. 'THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS,' Trump wrote Tuesday. 'Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to.' The order Trump signed in February states that 'it is the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women's sports' and threatens to 'rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.' At a signing ceremony in Washington, Trump said his administration will not allow transgender athletes to compete in the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles. Several Democratic-led states, most notably Maine, have bucked Trump's order, which they say violates state laws against discrimination. The California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports in the state, said in response to Trump's order that it would continue allowing transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their gender identity, consistent with a 2013 law. The Department of Education announced it had opened a Title IX investigation into the organization shortly after. On Tuesday, Trump said he is 'ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow' Hernandez to compete in the state finals next weekend. The White House did not respond to a question about to which state authorities Trump referenced. The president does not have direct authority over local law enforcement. Trump added that he plans to speak Tuesday with California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who, in the debut episode of his podcast, 'This is Gavin Newsom,' in March, said he believes transgender athletes participating in girls' and women's sports is 'deeply unfair.' At a press conference in Modesto, Calif., the following month, Newsom said he would be 'open' to a conversation about limiting trans athletes' participation if it were conducted 'in a way that's respectful and responsible and could find a kind of balance.' A spokesperson for Newsom declined to comment on whether the governor, seen as a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, would speak Tuesday with Trump. Hernandez has for months been the target of protests against transgender girls in girls' sports. At a recent track meet in Orange County, more than two dozen adults, including three local school board members, heckled Hernandez for hours, at one point raising their voices so loud as to cause a false start in another event, Capital and Main reported. 'I'm still a child and you're an adult, and for you to still act like a child shows how you are as a person,' Hernandez told the outlet this month. 'There's nothing I can do about people's actions, just focus on my own.' She said her teammates and most competitors support her. Hernandez is ranked third in California in the triple jump but is not ranked nationally. At a March meeting of the Jurupa Unified School District Board of Education, Superintendent Trenton Hansen acknowledged the risk of the district losing its funding. 'There is the threat from the federal government to withhold funding, there's threats from the state government to withhold funding if we violate laws,' Hansen said. 'Unfortunately, school districts are placed in the middle of this tug of war. All the information we've received from legal counsel … is that we follow the laws here in California, that executive orders do not carry the weight of the force of law, and that these issues will need to be figured out in the court system.'
DW
21-05-2025
- Sport
- DW
Hartenstein vying to become second German to win NBA title – DW – 05/21/2025
German basketball fans are getting their hopes up about the possibility of a second countryman winning an NBA title. Isaiah Hartenstein's Oklahoma City Thunder have reached the Western Conference finals. The Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 114-88 on Tuesday night to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference finals. Isaiah Hartenstein, who is vying to become just the second German after Dirk Nowitzki to win an NBA title, had 12 points and 5 rebounds on the night. "At the beginning, we got the shots we wanted, we just didn't make them. A few layups missed," Hartenstein said post-match. "Once our offense found its footing, we took our game to the next level." 'NBA always No. 1' German fans are hoping that not only will he win this year's NBA title, but that he will represent Germany at the next Olympic Summer Games, Los Angeles 2028. "The NBA will always be No. 1 for me," Hartenstein has always said when asked about his future with the national team. This is why he missed out on German basketball's major successes in recent years: bronze at the 2022 European Championship, gold at the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup, and fourth place at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Isaiah Hartenstein is a key player for the Oklahoma City Thunder Image: Brett Rojo-Imagn Images via Reuters Connect Gordon Herbert, the man who guided Germany to those successes, had made it clear when he took the job in 2021, that he would only consider players who were committed to the national team. Hartenstein simply didn't meet Herbert's criteria. The last of his 19 appearances for Germany came in 2018. However, in an April interview with the German weekly SportBild, Hartenstein said he was still open to playing for his country. "I definitely want to play at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Regarding this year's European Championship and the 2027 World Cup, we'll have to see how far we get in the playoffs and how my body feels," he said. "The NBA always comes first for me." Father as a coach Hartenstein was born on May 5, 1998, in Eugene, Oregon, to a German father and an American mother. He holds dual citizenship, so he was also eligible to play for the United States. He chose Germany – the country where he grew up as a basketball player. When he was 11, his family moved to the small town of Quakenbrück in northern Germany, after his father Florian, a center, had signed to play for Bundesliga-Basketball club, the Artland Dragons. Florian later worked as a youth coach for the club, where one of his players was his son. "I put him at a guard position as a big man (213 cm, 7 ft) so he can work on dribbling, passing more. I think it helped him later on to be more versatile," Florian told the online portal "The Undefeated." Speaking out against racism Many initially didn't believe the two were father and son due to Florian Hartenstein's darker skin. "I know I am half-Black, but you can't really see by my skin tone," Isaiah Hartenstein told "The Undefeated." "Sometimes they laugh and say, 'It's not possible.' And then they see my dad and kind of say, 'OK, we understand.'" Isaiah Hartenstein, certainly isn't one to let racist comments go unchallenged. "I tell them that it is not right what they are saying," Hartenstein said. "Even if I wasn't part Black, it's not right. Everyone is their own person. It's not about skin color. It's about your personality, what's inside." Cashing in on free agency At 16, Isaiah Hartenstein played his first Bundesliga game for the Artland Dragons. In 2016, he moved to top Lithuanian club Zalgiris Kaunus. A year later, he declared for the NBA draft and was selected 43rd overall by the Houston Rockets. Hartenstein spent a year with the Rockets' farm team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA G League before making his NBA debut in October 2018. Over the next few seasons, he also had stints with the Denver Nuggets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Clippers, and the New York Knicks. In 2024 he signed as a free agent with the Oklahoma City Thunder. His 3-year, $87 million (€77 million) contract makes him one of Germany's best-earning athletes. The 27-year-old has a large image of Jesus tattooed on his right arm. "My faith is very important to me and gives me a lot of strength," Hartenstein told "SportBild." "When I was at the top and signed my contract with OKC, my faith helped me stay grounded." In mid-2023, the basketball star married US model and influencer Kourtney Kellar, and their son Elijah was born a year later. "For me, family comes first," he stressed. Even before the NBA. This article was originally published in German.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Olympic flag football is solution to NFL's decades-long problem of failing to capture deep global interest
Nearly eight years ago, sitting on a couch in a hotel room in California, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had the concept of Olympic flag football on the tip of his tongue and just couldn't find it. In an expansive 1-on-1 interview with Yahoo Sports in the summer of 2017, Jones was discussing the growth of the NFL as a globally consumed sport when the subject of untapped markets was broached. At the time, the league was positioning itself to continue a robust international expansion of games in the U.K., mainland Europe, Canada and Mexico, with the ultimate goal of creating a 33rd NFL team through an international aggregate of games — in the hopes of eventually having what amounted to a full season's slate of matchups played outside of the United States each season. It was a shoot-for-the-moon dream that Jones and his fellow NFL team owners thought could be achieved with persistence and measured purpose over the span of decades. But there was still a hanging thread that Jones couldn't stop thinking about. Specifically, how to get traction for the NFL in places where it was nothing more than an oddity. It was a question that, back in 2017, was being focused through China — largely because the English Premier League and the NBA had cultivated that country's hundreds of millions of potential fans in a way that the NFL could only dream of achieving. 'I don't have a good answer on China,' Jones said in 2017. 'It's daunting.' 'The numbers are there [to draw the NFL in]. But what our challenge is — whether it be London or Mexico City, which I think are prime areas for expansion — our real challenge is how to whip things up and see if Shanghai wants to beat Beijing. Can it rile them up and can they have that kind of competition? If you've got a culture that can create that, then we've got potential.' Later in the interview, Jones speculated that the answer might not be an NFL-down approach at all. That simply playing NFL games in the country isn't enough to seed sustainable enthusiasm. Maybe what was needed was to find a way to simply introduce China to football in the most easy, organic way possible. 'It might be giving people a reason to pick up a football for the first time and just go outside to play with it,' he said. 'Which really isn't simple at all.' What Jones was getting at was a singular idea that has long created the wall between true global interest in the NFL versus the aggressively targeted international traction that currently exists: Getting people interested in the game itself — or some version of it — rather than getting people interested specifically in the NFL. Enter flag football and the grand stage of the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles. It's arguably the best answer the NFL has ever had to motivate the entire world to pick up a football and play with it — especially if some of the people picking up a football for their country also happen to be NFL players. At the NFL meetings in Minneapolis, club owners unanimously approved a proposal allowing the league's players to try out for flag football teams in the 2028 Summer Games. Vikings WR Justin Jefferson and LB Brian Asamoah join Roger Goodell as NFL team owners unanimously approve players' participation in 2028 Olympic flag football: — Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) May 20, 2025 'This is a good of the game issue maybe more than the good of the team,' one NFC team president said entering this week's meetings. 'But that's what the league has always been built on. … It's a great opportunity around the [Olympic] Games and gives the NFL unprecedented growth [opportunities] as well as an amazing lead into training camp.' Added an AFC team president: 'It's a smart way — and I honestly believe a carefully thought-out way — to finally be part of that global stage every four years. I get the injury [concern], but every other major professional sport in America has been part of the Olympics for 30 years or more now. The NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball have all been able to shoulder that risk. Now [the NFL] can be a part of it with moderately less risk than what happens on an NFL field.' While logistics of making an Olympic flag football team while also playing in the NFL aren't yet known, some of the guardrails are, among them: The league would allow one player on each NFL roster to try out for one country's Olympic team — leaving the door open for multiple players on a single team to play in the Olympics if they are eligible for non-U.S. rosters. For example, one player could try out for the U.S. team, while another could try out for the Canadian team if they meet ancestry requirements. Each team's international pathway player could also try out for their country's team. Flag football teams would need to meet a standard of medical care and playing surface mandates to be eligible for NFL players. It would also need to augment all parts of its schedule so that the player's NFL schedule would take precedent over everything else. Insurance coverage across the league to protect players in the event of an injury that derives from any flag football-related activities. Beyond that, a salary cap credit to any team that loses a player to a flag football-related injury. That's still a rough outline of the hurdles to even make NFL player participation possible. And it clearly acknowledges that there will be some athletic risk involved — something that has also been shown in some youth flag football studies indicating injury rates to be far lower than contact football, but hardly injury free. Given that reality, there's a palpable reticence inside the personnel executives whose entire world is a team-first mentality. 'Pandora's box,' one longtime and high-ranking AFC executive said. 'Think of the Robert Edwards injury years ago, blowing out his knee playing flag football on the beach.' A 1998 first-round draft pick of the New England Patriots, Edwards put up 1,446 yards rushing and receiving, and 12 total touchdowns as a rookie — only to have his career derailed after suffering a frightening knee injury playing flag football at the Pro Bowl. He barely avoided amputation after the injury and didn't play again until the 2002 season, when he had a brief one-season comeback with the Miami Dolphins that saw him play sparingly. That's the flag football nightmare scenario for those who remember it, and it's why some NFL contracts have clauses written into them that prohibit any participation in flag football. Of course, for a league trying to solve remaining barriers to global consumption — and crack Jones' 'daunting' question of how to get people in China to pick up a football — the potential rewards sometimes mitigate the potential risk. And it's not just franchise owners who are interested, either. George Atallah, a former high-ranking executive with the NFL Players Association for the past 16 years, has been talking to NFL players for years about the possibility of the Olympic experience. Now the founder and CEO of SOMEBODY consulting firm, Atallah's years of union experience gave him a blunt vantage: If there are coaches and front-office executives out there assuming star players won't get on board with being an Olympian in flag football, they're wrong. 'I disagree that stars won't want to play,' Atallah said. 'NFL players would be geeked. My opinion, from talking to players the last couple years about this, is that star players absolutely want to participate. And if the closest high-profile analog sport is the NBA, almost all of the players who have won a gold medal who are superstars, point to that medal as one of the top two highlights of their careers. And I think the same is going to be true for American NFL superstars. The gold medal, it just hits different when you've got the American flag behind it.' In turn, Atallah noted, the sport itself hits different for the world population when it doesn't require the necessity of a large amount of expensive equipment. He pointed to soccer being a worldwide phenomenon, and the fast absorption of basketball across the planet — which was largely aided by needing only a ball and something to aim for with it. 'The flag football opportunity gives the league a chance to grow the game with very little barriers to entry — for both players and fans,' Atallah said. 'That's the whole thing. Soccer, it's a field and a ball. Basketball, it's a ball and a hoop.' Atallah also noted that flag football also takes away the gender barrier that has forever existed on the playing field in the NFL. So not only does it put a football in the hands of new fans watching it on the Olympics for the first time — it puts that ball in potentially every hand. Every hand … possibly every country … revisited and grown in between every four years of a worldwide Olympic audience. Allowing NFL players to be a part of that may not be the NFL's solution to finally breaking down doors to a truly global fan base, but it might be the best one yet. And that's why it was front and center on the agenda of NFL team owners this week.
