We’re not just invoking Ronda Rousey’s name for search traffic. Marti Malloy has a couple of similarities to the brash UFC champion — an Olympic judo medal among them.
Now Malloy also has a gold medal from the first Grand Prix held on U.S. soil (Miami). She clinched the title with Rousey’s favorite technique, an armbar:
(Her fight starts around the 2:49 mark. If you’re really impatient, skip from there to the last 30 seconds of the bout.)
Malloy is this week’s winner of the Woly Award, which SportsMyriad gives to the top U.S. Olympic sports athlete of the week.
Soccer: Most of the SportsMyriad readership is surely aware that the U.S. women beat South Korea 4-1, and that Abby Wambach scored her 156th career goal.
Volleyball: Two wins for the U.S. men over France in World League play, plus a Pan American Cup gold medal for the U.S. women.
BMX: Arielle Martin finished second in a World Cup stop, while Connor Fields and Alise Post medaled in the time trials.
“My socks and shoes always match. Is it luck?” – Primus
Let’s start by giving credit where it’s due. Saturday night at the Plex, the Western New York Flash dominated the first half and defended well in the second half. Outstanding young goalkeeper Adrianna Franch was alert when she needed to be, particularly in poking the ball away from Stephanie Ochs outside the box on a breakaway.
And if we’re going to talk about luck and injuries, the Flash could certainly say, “Did you see Sarah Huffman out there? Oh, that’s right — she was home watching her team and the U.S. national team on two streams.”
If the Spirit had gotten a couple of breaks, the game might have been 1-1. And if it had been 1-1 in the 60th minute, the game may well have played out a bit differently from that point.
So with that out of the way, let’s talk about the reasons soccer karma owes the Spirit more than a few favors:
1. The central defense conundrum. In the allocation process, the Spirit got Alina Garciamendez, the Stanford All-American who surely would have been a top draft pick had she not been allocated. But she went to Frankfurt instead.
The Spirit’s biggest free agent signing was Candace Chapman, longtime Canadian international and two-time WPS champion. She played 45 minutes a few weeks ago, but the team saw that she was not yet fit to play more than that. They tried her again on Saturday, and she spent most of the first half grimacing.
One thing that went right for the Spirit: Toni Pressley was cleared to play, an important piece of good timing given Robyn Gayle’s engagement with the Canadian national team. So after one practice, she was tossed into the mix alongside Chapman. Individually, Pressley was fine, showing a few flashes that justified the Spirit’s hype. And in the second half, when she was paired with former Florida State teammate Tori Huster, the defense wasn’t bad at all.
But in the first half, having a hobbled backline leader with a newcomer is far from ideal.
Which leads to …
2. What the heck was that first goal? Looks like it hit Ashlyn Harris’ glove, then the FRONT of the post, then spun in. I know we’re near Washington, but that’s a lot of spin.
We might trust the ref a bit more if he hadn’t somehow failed to notice a couple of Flash players with socks around their ankles and no evident shin guards. (Ironically, the Spirit Reserves’ Alex Doll was sent to the sidelines in the first game of the doubleheader so that she could produce the mandatory protective equipment.)
The Spirit can take a couple of positives in the sense that they were creative in the second half, and Pressley settled in nicely. Conny Pohlers is on the way. But it’s getting a little late in the season for moral victories and a general notion that the team is improving. I think the Spirit would be a dangerous team in the playoffs, but the math dictates that it’ll be a difficult climb to get there.
I might have a heightened sense of empathy for unlucky soccer teams after coaching an All-Star team over the weekend in which we had one ref who let our opponents knock us all over the field, then another ref who would arrest people for driving 66 mph in a 65 zone. (Nothing like two PKs and a direct free kick just outside the box to rattle a 9-year-old goalkeeper.) The team made great progress in a short time, and while they weren’t going to earn a trophy, the final score of their last game really wasn’t fair.
And so when you look at the Spirit — and sure, my sense of empathy may be heightened by being around the team all the time — you see an organization doing a lot of things right. They have the best playing surface in the league. They’re committed to an attractive style of play. They’re selling tickets. And they’ve yet to win a home game.
ESPN and Sports Illustrated surely didn’t coordinate their stories on the NCAA and other investigations in sports. But taken together, the pieces show troubling issues for those who try to keep sports fair.
The main Sports Illustrated piece isn’t available online as far as I know, at least not yet. It’s an investigation about an investigation, in which Pete Thamel and Alexander Wolff show how the NCAA’s probe into the University of Miami went horribly awry. Thamel followed up online with a look at turnover on the enforcement staff and general NCAA dysfunction. Wolff goes a different direction and reports on Nevin Shapiro, the Miami whistleblower. (He apparently made a lot of money betting that the Hurricanes wouldn’t cover the spread against Duke. I’m tempted to take that as flattery, but I probably can’t.)
ESPN’s Chris Jones has a column on Georgia’s Kolton Houston, who at one point was banned for life as a repeat drug offender until the Bulldogs produced proof that his body has residual norandrolone from a doctor’s mistake in high school. Those who follow Olympic sports, particularly cases like Torri Edwards’ and Alain Baxter’s, may recognize the pitfalls of “zero tolerance” applied by people who aren’t paying attention to details.
Then we have the saddest case, indirectly involving the NCAA. College football coach Todd Hoffner lost his job through overzealous overreaction in the post-Jerry Sandusky era. Worse, he was branded a child pornographer. His mistake? His kids asked him to shoot a video, the kids (toddler/early elementary age) dropped their clothes, and he didn’t immediately erase the video. The people who prosecuted Hoffner, both within Minnesota State-Mankato and in court, would be hard pressed to say their actions were in the best interests of his children.
The Hoffner case is a classic overreaction and should be a cautionary tale. The Houston case is a reminder to all anti-doping authorities to get all the facts, not just what a lab result tells them.
Can anything be done about the NCAA? Perhaps simplifying would be better. Rather than having layers of compliance protocols that make the U.S. tax code look like the rules for the first Ultimate Fighting Championship “there are no rules!” event, maybe focus on two things:
1. Schools can’t pay athletes.
2. Student-athletes must be students in good standing.
So much else the NCAA oversees is just so much hair-splitting and bureaucracy. Do we really care if someone gave an athlete a ride home? Or if athletes in Olympic sports have sponsors? Or about any of the procedural hoops USL, NPSL and WPSL teams have to clear so they can have college athletes on their teams?
Drop a lot of the overregulation, and maybe they’ll do a better job with the actual cheating.
Stanford’s Kori Carter set an NCAA record in the women’s 400-meter hurdles (video) with a time of 53.21, also the fastest in the world this year. By a large margin. The second-best time of the year was set six days earlier on the same track in Eugene, Ore., by the Czech Republic’s Zuzana Hejnova — 53.70.
That alone would put Carter in consideration for the Woly Award, given to the top U.S. Olympic sports athlete of the week.
But Carter had competition from Clemson’s Brianna Rollins, who also set a meet record and world leader in the 100 hurdles at 12.39.
What set Carter apart? Check out who finished second in the 100 hurdles. That’s right — Kori Carter.
That’s 18 points of Stanford’s 33 points in the NCAA meet, and it’s enough to give Carter the Woly Award for the week.
Meet Carter at FloTrack, where she talks a bit about her 400-meter performance and the audacity of running both events.
Other top performances from the NCAA meet:
Women’s 100: English Gardner, Oregon, 10.96, third fastest runner in 2013.
Men’s 400: Bryshon Nellum, USC, 44.73, fourth in 2013.
Women’s 400: Ashley Spencer, Illinois, 50.28, fifth in 2013.
Then at the Golden Gala in Rome, the latest Diamond League stop:
Men’s 400 hurdles: Johnny Dutch (48.31) held off Puerto Rico’s Javier Culson (48.36) and now owns the top two times of 2013.
Women’s long jump: Another good duel between Brittney Reese (6.99) and Janay Deloach Soukup (6.97).
Also in track and field, last week’s Woly winner, Mary Cain, … stop me if you’re heard this before … broke a U.S. high school track and field record, this time in the 5,000 meters. Time is 15:45.46. That’s three high school outdoor records this spring.
And the other nominees this week:
WATER POLO: Betsey Armstrong made eight important saves as the U.S. women clinched bronze at the World League Super Final.
TENNIS: Serena Williams and the Bryan brothers won French Open titles. Not enough room here to talk about their career accomplishments.
The rest of the Oly week is at TeamUSA.org as always.
Sports to watch this week:
– Archery, World Cup
– Beach volleyball, Grand Slam
– Volleyball, World League, Tulsa
– Water polo, men’s World League Super Final
– Track and field, Diamond League ExxonMobil Bislett Games, Oslo
– Mountain bike, World Cup
– Judo, Grand Prix Miami
Yesterday’s Sydney Leroux saga had a few predictable outcomes. Late in the day, we heard Leroux wasn’t specifically talking about the game in Toronto on Sunday — in fact, she says the atmosphere there was great! “A positive step forward for women’s soccer,” even.
Of course, by then, it was too late for the Toronto crowd. Many of the mainstream media stories on the web have been updated with Leroux’s clarification — she was talking about an older game in Vancouver, plus Twitter — but a lot of headlines still reflect what her tweet implied: The crowd in Toronto was using racist chants against her.
To respond to one of yesterday’s comments — I don’t see such accusations as “minutiae.” I’d rather be called a bleepity-bleep whatever than a racist. I’ve been called a racist before. It hurts. It cuts to your soul. It is not an accusation to be tossed around lightly and then say, “Oh, I meant those OTHER guys.”
So that’s one lesson learned, and it’s one of many excellent points in Richard Whittall’s column, “Some lessons from the Leroux saga.”
Another lesson is aimed squarely at Canadian fans, in response to attitudes like this:
I’m not going to walk around asking Canadian players what they think of their fans tossing out the c-word and b-word. They shouldn’t have to confront this themselves. Those of us with Y chromosomes should simply know better.
As Whittall put it:
That the rest of the world has set a low bar in acceptable bounds of player abuse isn’t a great reason for Canadian or American fans of womens soccer to do the same.
I’m also still befuddled by people trotting out the notion that this sort of thing happens in men’s soccer all the time, so there’s some sort of double-standard in place. “Balotelli does it” is one of those arguments. Yes, and Balotelli is one the most controversial, if not the most reviled, soccer players in the world.
Europe offers plenty of soccer traditions to emulate. Balotelli’s behavior and fans hurling sexist epithets aren’t among them. Or maybe one day we’ll end borrowing another European tradition — forcing teams to play in empty stadiums.
So, moving forward, we can hope Leroux will quit throwing gasoline on the fire with poorly chosen celebrations and poorly focused accusations. She has made plenty of enemies of non-racist, non-abusive Canadian fans who may have defended her in the past.
But as fans, we all need to take a step back and think about the limits of our fan passions. The Voyageurs immediately spoke out against racism, and that’s terrific. It’s not, however, the end of the conversation about what’s acceptable in the stands.
What were you doing with your weekends when you were in high school?
Mary Cain uses hers to break U.S. track and field records. She took down a few indoor and junior records in the indoor season, and she’s doing it again outdoors. In May, she ran the 1,500 in 4:04.62, smashing Suzy Favor Hamilton’s junior record of 4:09.10 and her own high school record.
Saturday at the Prefontaine Classic, Cain took advantage of a rare opportunity to break not just a record but a round number. No U.S. high school woman had ever run the 800 meters in two minutes.
The flower is from U.S. champion Alysia Montano, who barely held off Cain for fourth place in the race. Montano then hugged Cain and transplanted the distinctive red flower from her own hair to Cain’s.
(Fourth place? Yes, this race was fast. Winner Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi won in the fastest time in the world this year and the fastest time ever on U.S. soil – 1:56.72.)
Cain takes this week’s Woly Award, given to the top U.S. athlete in Olympic sports over the weekend.
The Pre kicked up a couple of nominees, including 100-meter champion Justin Gatlin. In the men’s 400, LaShawn Merritt won a thrilling duel with Olympic champion Kirani James.
Crash Davis, Bull Durham: What are you doing? Huh? What are you doing standing here? I gave you a gift, you stand here showing up my pitcher? Run, dummy!
Sports have written rules and unwritten rules. The written rules tell you the size of the field, what to do when a ball becomes defective in the course of play, what sort of socks aren’t acceptable, etc. The unwritten rules tell us so much more:
1. Hockey fights stay on the ice. The book The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHLhad all sorts of amusing anecdotes, my favorite being the one in which the guy losing a fight yells, “Loser buys the pizza.” The guy who’s winning says, “Well, I think you’re buying.” Then the losing fighter yells, “Yeah, but the winner buys the beer!”
Then there’s this, in which a veteran hockey enforcer gives an opponent a chance to impress his coaches:
I’m not saying the code makes a whole lot of sense. But it exists.
2. When a soccer player is down on the field, someone will kick the ball out of play so the trainers can run on the field. Then the ball is returned to the other side. That’s not in the written rules. Players do that on their own.
If you missed yesterday’s arguments after the USA-Canada women’s soccer match in Toronto, here’s the deal: Former Canadian U20 U19* striker Sydney Leroux, who has endured all sorts of abuse on Twitter and heard it from the crowd all day yesterday, scored a garbage-time goal for the USA and celebrated by waving the USA badge at the crowd and shushing them.
Canadian commentators weren’t happy. “Classless,” said Craig Forrest on TV. At TSN’s site, Gareth Wheeler summed up the unwritten rule in this case:
An act as such is an absolute no-no in soccer. You don’t pay homage to the badge against your former team, let alone the country of your birth.
This rule was at the heart of yesterday’s Twitter arguments. A lot of WoSo fans insisted that they’ve seen men celebrating the same way, taunting fans, etc. Two issues with that:
1. It’s rare to see players doing such things, as Wheeler says, “against your former team, let alone the country of your birth.”
2. If, say, an English-born player did while playing for Scotland against England, that just might make the news. The ensuing riot certainly would. And you’d have plenty of English commentators calling the act “classless” or worse. I couldn’t find specific examples, but I think that’s because it just isn’t done. More common is the example of Polish-born German player Lukas Podolski, who scored twice against Poland in Euro 2008 and refused to celebrate at all.
So as with a lot of Hope Solo’s controversies, the “sexist double standard” argument doesn’t hold water. (And as someone who greatly appreciates men’s AND women’s soccer, I get rather irritated with false stereotypes in either direction, and then I tweet too much and get unfollowed by a bunch of disgruntled people. Sorry about that, though I’d also suggest getting Hootsuite and making a few lists so you can tune it out when some people in your feed start a lively discussion that you’re not enjoying. In any case, I’ll wrap it up more quickly in the future so you don’t have to adjust your timelines. All that said, I found a lot of the discussion helpful as I tried to clarify the situation, so thanks to those who stuck around.)
I haven’t seen much reaction from Canadian players (if you see more, please leave it in the comments). But here’s Christine Sinclair:
“Maybe not the classiest of moves,” Sinclair said of Leroux’s gesture. “She scored on us and an individual can do what they like. I probably wouldn’t have done the same, but we move on.”
Did the celebration arguments overshadow the game? Well, yes. But aside from Alex Morgan’s superb goals and the solid defense of 17-year-old Canadian Kadeisha Buchanan, it wasn’t much of a game. Canada brought a lot of emotion but little else.
Now in front of a boisterous sell-out crowd at BMO Field on Sunday afternoon, they tried to muscle the Americans out of their rhythm. This was a planned assault, and as plodding as that sounds.
Tactically, it was smart. Aesthetically, it was turgid. Functionally, it was useless.
The atmosphere was promising. The passion many WoSo fans have yearned to see at their stadiums was finally there. I thought it was clever to hear fans counting to six, a reference to the puzzling free kick that helped the USA in that Olympic semifinal, every time U.S. goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart had the ball.
So if you want me to respond to a comment, do it here. Out of deference to those who are done talking about this, I’m not going to bring it up again on Twitter.
I think the last word on Twitter should go to Heather Mitts:
Life isn't fair, get use to it. Control what you can control & don't sweat the small stuff. Oh and mean people suck. #deepthoughts
Postscript: As I was writing this post, Sydney Leroux started a tweet with “When you chant racial slurs.” Plenty of Canadians, including some I know to have been at the game, vehemently deny they heard anything of that nature. If she heard it from one person one time, of course, that’s too much. But in light of Boston Breakers fans (ironically, Leroux’s NWSL team) being unfairly smeared as racist in a fairly prominent book, I’m not about to do the same thing to Canadian fans. I think we can agree that the overwhelming majority, somewhere between 95 and 99.99 percent of people in BMO, would abhor such things.
Sure, I’ve seen the video in which one guy is recorded yelling a couple of nasty (sexist, not racist, not that one is “better” than the other) words. That’s bad. But that’s not a “chant.” A chant involves many people saying and repeating the same thing.
I can’t say Leroux heard absolutely nothing, and I’m sure she’s received all sorts of abuse from random racist morons on Twitter. I don’t mean to diminish that or excuse it. But I’m not going to give any credence to the thought that racism was widespread at BMO yesterday until someone produces evidence to the contrary.
Now back to the NWSL, where we’re still taking up a collection to pay the fines of Seattle staffers complaining about a call that was, indeed, quite wrong.
*Correction: Leroux played youth soccer for Canada before FIFA adjusted its age ranges. She was on Canada’s U19 World Championship team in 2004. Some trivia: Her teammates included Robyn Gayle, Sophie Schmidt, Emily Zurrer, Jodi-Ann Robinson and Golden Boot winner Brittany Timko. Among the U.S. players: Ashlyn Harris, Rachel Buehler, Stephanie (Lopez) Cox, Becky Sauerbrunn, Amy Rodriguez, Yael Averbuch, Nikki Krzyzik, Angie Woznuk and Megan Rapinoe. Other teams: Veronica Boquete (Spain), Simone Laudehr (Germany), Celia Okoyino da Mbabi (Germany) and Marta (Brazil).
Germany needed a late equalizer and penalties to get past Nigeria in the quarterfinals, but the high-scoring team beat the USA 3-1 in the semifinals and took the title against China 2-0. Third-place game: USA 3, Brazil 0. The highlight for Canada: Coming back from 3-0 down to draw Germany 3-3 in group play.
I can’t say I wasn’t warned. When I mentioned that I needed to watch the Spirit’s 3-0 loss to Boston at some point, several people urged me to reconsider.
And I can’t say I’m glad I ignored that advice. This was a dreary game on a dreary night in Boston. No, the Spirit didn’t play particularly well. But neither did Boston, aside from player of the week Lianne Sanderson, the energetic Kyah Simon and the reliable Kia McNeill.
The field was one culprit in the general disarray. You’d think the Breakers would be used to Dilboy Stadium’s nasty carpet and narrow confines by now, but apparently not. On a rare Spirit corner kick, Heather O’Reilly protested when the ref tried to move her 10 yards away. O’Reilly was standing just outside the box. The hashmark showing the 10-yard distance away from the corner is clearly inside the box. Zoom in and see for yourself:
(I think they may have re-lined the field since this was taken — I recall the hashmark even further inside the box, but that may be a matter of perspective.)
The other culprit was the lenient referee. The Spirit may have had a shout for a penalty kick when debut starter Jasmyne Spencer was hauled down in the box, but the Breakers could have asked how Julia Roberts was winning so many midfield battles by armbar.
Boston wasn’t as dominant in the first half as I would’ve expected after seeing the stats. “Shots on goal: 0” is the kind of stat you expect from a USA-Iceland game, not an NWSL game between teams that had drawn their first two matches. Yet the Spirit wasn’t overrun, and I don’t think the young forwards deserve much criticism. Tiffany McCarty was active throughout, and she set up Spencer for a good chance or two. But Diana Matheson isn’t going to sneak up on anyone any more, and the rest of the Spirit midfield didn’t create much.
Let’s just focus on the two highlights, one for each side:
– Sanderson’s first assist was sublime. I don’t even know how she saw O’Reilly behind her, but she flipped the ball over her shoulder perfectly into the speedy winger’s path. O’Reilly was lucky that Tori Huster had just taken a step back, keeping her onside, but it would’ve been a shame to waste a pass like that.
– Chantel Jones slammed the door on Katie Schoepfer’s penalty kick.
So now the Spirit will have three weeks to regroup. Literally. Teresa “Lupita” Worbis has joined the team, and she may not be the only one. The Spirit has long talked about its mysterious fifth free agent, a defender based in Europe. Then Steven Goff tweeted today that an attacker with German national team experience may join the team before its next game. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. (But they’re also not public yet for a reason. If the Spirit could announce a big player signing right now, I’m sure they’d shout it from the mountaintops. Or at least the top of one of the hills at the SoccerPlex.)
In the meantime, if you haven’t already watched this game … don’t. The NWSL archive at YouTube has far better selections.
Dan Calichman and Ted Chronopoulos, whom many of us remember from 1990s MLS, are in the news as the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Chivas USA. C&C Coaching Factory had done pretty well with the club’s academy program, only to be dismissed midseason.
At the time, Top Drawer Soccer’s J.R. Eskilson and The Goat Parade’s Alicia Ratterree were concerned:
We may look back at this story and see that it is just a blip and won’t impact the long term development of the Academy and Chivas USA’s first team. But there is going to be turmoil in the short term, whether that means scaring potential recruits away, or actually sending current talented Academy players to other destinations.
In the medium term, as it turns out, it’s a bit more than a blip. It’s a case of employment law. Calichman and Chronopoulos say they were fired because they’re “non-Latino Americans.”
Chivas USA isn’t the first soccer team in the USA or Canada to bill itself with a specific ethnic identity. The U.S. Open Cup is full of names like Maccabi Los Angeles, Philadelphia Ukrainians, Brooklyn Italians, etc. The NASL of the 1970s tried to keep ethnic marketing to a minimum but nevertheless tolerated “Toronto Metros-Croatia” for a while. Some teams such as the St. Louis Stars and Philadelphia Atoms boasted of their Americanization, and U.S. players gathered as “Team America” near the end of the league’s lifespan.
Such historical idiosyncrasies surely won’t help Chivas USA and owner Jorge Vergara, who bought out his former partners last year, in this case. They could, perhaps, argue that they’re simply instilling a new style of play, and that Calichman and Chronopoulos didn’t fit in. That’s not unusual. Players and coaches alike can be sent packing when a team tries to play a different way.
That argument would be interesting if it went to court. But that’s probably not how it’ll play out. Not given some of the more incendiary parts of the complaint:
After publicly identifying those employees who did not speak Spanish, (Vergara) announced that those employees who did not speak Spanish would no longer be able to work at CHIVAS USA. As he further stated, “If you don’t speak Spanish, you can go work for the Galaxy, unless you speak Chinese, which is not even a language.”
The next quote in the complaint is from Chivas USA HR director Cynthia Craig: “Oh boy. I can’t believe he just said that.”
Chronopoulos was then asked to survey everyone in the Academy, players and parents, to get their ethnic and national backgrounds. Shortly thereafter, Chronopoulos and Calichman filed complaints with Craig. They met not just with Craig, but with team president Jose David, who presided over one of the most awkward non-firings this side of The Office.
MR. CHRONOPOULOS asked if he was being fired. Ms. Craig responded, “No; you are not being fired,” but cryptically added, “We will be sending you some options in a few days.” Mr. David, however, interrupted and announced that they would send him some options by the very next day. Despite being told he was not being fired, he was also told not to return to his coaching duties.
A standoff continued for nearly two months.
Not mentioned in that complaint: Chivas USA hired a new U18 Academy coach to replace Calichman. A man of notable Mexican heritage? Well, not exactly.
Will that hiring help Chivas USA stave off discrimination accusations? Or will Chivas USA try to settle this quickly and quietly?
And once the case is resolved, what’s the future of Chivas USA? If you’re in the MLS front office or another MLS owner’s office, are you pushing for the team to be sold as quickly as possible?
If we told you Tyson Gay ran a 10.02 in the 100 meters over the weekend, would you be impressed?
No? How about if it was cold and raining?
A little better? OK, shall we add that it was into a headwind?
Interested now? Let’s finish with this: He eased up over the last 20 meters because he was so sure he would take the Diamond League win in New York. And he did.
So Tyson Gay takes this week’s Woly award for outstanding achievement by a U.S. Olympic sports athlete.
Also at the adidas Grand Prix:
Women’s long jump: USA’s Janay Deloach-Soukup was nowhere near Brittney Reese’s world lead (7.25), but she set a meet record (6.79) to edge Britain’s Shara Proctor by 0.07. Reese fouled twice in her three attempts.
Men’s shot put: World leader Ryan Whiting was 1.01 meters off his season best of 21.27 but still won comfortably and led a U.S. sweep of the top four places with Reese Hoffa, Cory Martin and Joe Kovacs.
Women’s pole vault: Jenn Suhr entered the competition at 4.63 meters and cleared it on her second attempt. No one else did.
Men’s 400 hurdles: Good race – USA’s Michael Tinsley (48.43) held off Puerto Rico’s Javier Culson (48.53) and world leader Johnny Dutch (USA, 48.78).
Women’s 3,000 steeplechase: USA’s Bridget Franek interrupted the Kenya-Ethiopia hegemony with a fourth-place finish, less than five seconds behind Kenyan winner Lidya Chepkurui (9:30.82).
Women’s discus: Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic dominated — meet-record 68.23 meters extended her own world lead and beat the USA’s Gia Lewis-Smallwood by more than 6 meters.
Men’s triple jump: No one was getting near the world lead in these conditions. France’s Benjamin Compaore (16.45) held off the USA’s Christian Taylor by 0.03 meters.
Women’s high jump: The athlete who most looks like a Bond villain, Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic, tied the meet record at 1.94 meters. The USA’s Brigetta Barrett, fresh from a mention in SI’s Faces in the Crowd, finished third at 1.91.
Women’s 1,500: Brenda Martinez had the top U.S. finish (third, 4:06.25), finishing one spot ahead of world leader Nancy Jebet Langat of Kenya and two ahead of the USA’s Shannon Rowbury.
Women’s 400: Botswana’s Amantle Montsho (49.91) broke the meet record of Sanya Richards-Ross, who was a late scratch from the race. Natasha Hastings and Francena McCorory finished 2-3.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL: Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson were second in the FIVB Grand Slam in Argentina. April Ross and Jen Kessy were fourth in the women’s competition.
WATER POLO: Some lopsided scores in World League continental qualifying.
FENCING: Mariel Zagunis was second in saber Grand Prix competition.
Duresport.com 