Men’s golf in full panic over all the LIV-PGA Tour bickering turning off fans at a time when Tiger is done or nearly done, and Phil too. TV ratings will never reach Tiger levels again. So the men who run golf caved to Saudi blood money. PGA Tour now in sports-washing business.
VP Mike Pence was so stung by Adam Rippon’s criticism that he tried to set up a conversation with him. Not backing down, Rippon refused. My
@usatodaysports
exclusive on the bizarre battle between the VP of the United States — and a figure skater.
Urban Meyer should have been fired. Instead, he survives as a diminished version of his once mighty self. By failing to do everything in his power to stop the abusive Zach Smith, then lying about it, Meyer is a weakened, lesser man. My column:
Ran into Trump critic Jose Andres, who got a raucous standing ovation for his first pitch, in the elevator heading back to press box. “Today we celebrate immigrants on a field full of immigrants,” he told me. He waved goodbye as Nats owner Mark Lerner happened to be in the lobby.
Mary Lou Retton, one of the greatest names in U.S. Olympic history, “has a very rare form of pneumonia and is fighting for her life,” according to her daughter McKenna Kelley’s Instagram story. “She is not able to breathe on her own. She’s been in the ICU for over a week now.”
Michael Andrew, the highest profile unvaccinated American Olympian, refused to wear a mask in the mixed zone. Every other US swimmer I’ve seen all week has worn one.
An hour after the World Cup ended, Donald Trump still has not tweeted his congratulations to
@USWNT
. Melania has, but not the U.S. President. He picked the wrong side on this one. In the battle of Trump vs.
@mPinoe
, she won, unequivocally.
Hollywood’s attempt to rehabilitate Tonya Harding is fascinating, and ridiculous. She told ABC she knew the knuckleheads around her were going to attack Nancy Kerrigan and didn’t stop it. She doesn’t deserve an ounce of sympathy, folks. Will be talking about this on
@HLNTV
next.
Note the date: 9/16/20, the day the vaunted Big Ten became the SEC. It choked. It got scared. It sold its soul for football. My
@usatodaysports
column on the darkest day in Big Ten history:
I wrote this June 7, 2022, a year ago tomorrow. Looking at it now, well… We’ve always known the male leaders of golf are spineless. We should have known how this was going to play out. History will not judge them well, at all.
That was heartbreaking, all of it, leading to one of the most unsettling and shocking moments in Olympic history. The abuse of a child by a coach and a nation — on display for all to see. Column coming soon.
Hideki Matsuyama would not be the first Japanese golfer to win a major. He would be the first male golfer from Japan to win one. There have been two Japanese women to win majors: Hisako Higuchi won the 1977 LPGA Championship and Hinako Shibuno won the 2019 Women’s British Open.
After agreeing to an offer to work for NBC, Adam Rippon
@Adaripp
decided overnight that he would rather remain as an Olympian, source telling me. Didn’t want to
relinquish his official Olympic standing, give up credential, move out of Team USA housing and miss closing ceremony.
U.S. Olympian Adam Rippon
@adaripp
blasts selection of VP Mike Pence to lead U.S. delegation to 2018 Games. “Pence doesn’t stand for anything that I really believe in.” My
@usatodaysports
interview with the openly gay and always outspoken Rippon:
I’m watching — actually, enduring — this Lance Armstrong documentary because I’m writing a
@usatodaysports
column about it. Otherwise I already would have turned it off. This guy is the worst cheater in sports history. What a colossal waste of time.
Every college athletic director should watch this and then be asked to explain why they keep hiring men to coach women. This has to stop. Girls and young women need role models/leaders who look like them.
@MuffetMcGraw
is so right. (And get rid of that “Lady ___” nonsense too.)
According to WADA code and ISU rules, Kamila Valieva should not be practicing. USADA’s Travis Tygart: “There is no minor exception for a provisional suspension. It has to be implemented. It’s a substance that requires a provisional suspension and her practicing (is) a violation.”
Another Katie Ledecky victory with no one else in the picture. She just won the 1,500 freestyle at the 2023 world championships by more than 17 seconds, tying Michael Phelps for the most world gold medals in history with 15.
Really, Tiger? You’re a 47-year-old 'girl dad’ who still pulls juvenile and sexist tampon pranks like an immature school boy? My
@usatodaysports
column:
Here’s the decision: A four-year ban for Valieva from Dec 2021 to Dec 2025. Her Olympic results are disqualified, CAS says. A huge win for clean sport and massive loss for the Russian doping system.
Shame on Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player. They chose to accept the Medal of Freedom from Trump — to be seen with him and stand with him — the day after his words and actions launched the deadly and appalling attack on the US Capitol. My
@usatoday
column:
American 19-year-old Ilia Malinin just gave the greatest athletic performance in the history of figure skating. Six quadruple jumps, a huge win, his first world championship title. We are now closer to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan than the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
Here’s the message the Masters must be saying to Jon Rahm tonight: Thank you for beating the LIV golfers. Thank you for saving us from ourselves. My
@usatodaysports
column from the final round at Augusta National:
This is an American embarrassment. It is insulting to every one of his USA teammates who have dutifully followed the rules and worn masks everywhere journalists could see them. It’s unbelievable that it was allowed to happen by USA Swimming. Column coming soon.
@usatodaysports
Michael Andrew, the highest profile unvaccinated American Olympian, refused to wear a mask in the mixed zone. Every other US swimmer I’ve seen all week has worn one.
Four of the worst sex abuse scandals in US history: Jerry Sandusky at PSU; Larry Nassar at MSU; Richard Strauss at OSU; Robert Anderson at Michigan. All that evil, all on Big Ten campuses. Chilling. Today is about an awful conference-wide sports decision.
Breaking: Positive drug test by Russian figure skater has forced a delay in the Olympic team medals ceremony. My news story:
@usatodaysports
@usatoday
It appears Tonya Harding is up to her old tricks. Her loyal agent/publicist Michael Rosenberg resigned today over Tonya’s insistence that reporters be fined $25,000 if they ask her anything about the past. Here’s his FB post...”I, Tonya” is “Goodbye, Tonya!”
Megan Rapinoe tells
@cnn
she would not go to the White House and says every
@USWNT
teammate she has talked with about it won’t go either. She says no one on the team wants to have their platform and causes “co-opted or corrupted” by the Trump administration. So that’s that.
The World Cup is over, but we are not done with the
@USWNT
— nor are they done with us. Predictions: They’ll get equal pay. They won’t go to the White House. They will go to the U.S. Capitol. That and more in my
@usatodaysports
column:
What a stunning error by the Washington Nationals at the White House today. They turned a traditionally nonpartisan celebration into a MAGA event — in a city and metropolitan area that despises Donald Trump. My
@usatodaysports
column:
Shaun White just called the awful allegations against him “gossip” in a press conference where no woman journalist was called upon even though several, including me, had their hand up the entire time.
#MeToo
New: IOC member Dick Pound tells me re: ROC over CAN for team bronze: “Clearly there has been an error made. It should not require a legal proceeding. The math is not rocket science. An error was made & needs to be corrected asap. The longer it goes on, the worse the ISU looks.”
100 hours of silence from
@ISU_Figure
on why it put Russia ahead of Canada for the 2022 Olympic team skating bronze medal. From early Tuesday morning (5:22 am ET to be exact) to right now: no return emails, no explanation of their math, nothing.
The ISU sent out this new team order — USA, Japan and Russia — at 4:39 am ET. At 5:22, I emailed about their math, asking why two points weren’t added (1 in SP, 1 in LP) to the other women who would move up after Valieva’s DQ? Canada would be 3rd in that case. Still no response.
As former USA Gymnastics CEO Steve Penny leaves the Senate hearing after pleading the Fifth six times, former gymnast Amy Compton, herself a victim of abuse, yells “Shame!”
If the ISU follows its own rules, it has the wrong bronze medalist. It should be Canada not Russia. Rule 353(4)(a): “Competitors having finished the competition and who initially placed lower than the disqualified Competitor(s) will move up accordingly in their placement(s).”
ISU has been silent for 54 hours after apparently doing only half the math on the re-ordering of the 2022 Olympic team bronze medal. It subtracted 20 pts from ROC for the Valieva DQ, but failed to add a point each (SP and LP) to the remaining women. Just trying to help here. 😉
As we look back on Bill Belichick’s career, it’s worthwhile to remember that he turned down appearing with Donald Trump after Jan. 6 when others in the sports (golf) world did not.
Bill Belichick turns down Trump’s Medal of Freedom offer, highlighting the huge mistake Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player made last week by appearing with Trump less than 24 hours after he incited the insurrection at the Capitol.
Three hours now since the CAS Valieva decision and the Intl Skating Union, the group that decides the medal order, is not answering emails and has gone silent. I’m hearing they were totally unprepared for today’s announcement. It would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.
You can believe Serena Williams’ behavior was wrong yet still believe there’s a terrible double standard for women compared to men in tennis. Men have gotten away with far worse than what Serena did Saturday. My
@usatodaysports
column:
Exclusive: USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland has just confirmed to
@usatodaysports
that the United States will receive the gold medal in the 2022 Olympic figure skating team competition. The IOC statement below led to this late-breaking news.
More news in the Kamila Valieva saga, and it’s big: World Anti-Doping Agency asks Court of Arbitration for Sport to find Valieva guilty of doping, seeking four-year ban and disqualification of all her results from 12/25/21 onward, including the Beijing Olympic team gold medal.
Finally! WADA has had enough of Russian delay tactics and has gone directly to CAS to rule on Valieva. Still likely a long way from resolving the medals and getting them to the athletes who deserve them but this is progress.
Breaking Olympic selection news: I have confirmed with three sources that the US men’s Olympic figure skating team will be Nathan Chen, Vincent Zhou and Adam Rippon. Ross Miner, 2nd place finisher at US Nationals, has been dropped.
#USChamps18
@usatodaysports
Awful news: Figure skater Bridget Namiotka, who came forward as victim of sexual abuse by John Coughlin, is dead at 32. “Bridget succumbed to her long struggles with addiction after several very difficult years of dealing with the trauma of sexual abuse.”
Breaking news in the Kamila Valieva doping saga: the World Anti-Doping Agency announced this morning that it will appeal “wrong” RUSADA decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, seeking a four-year ban for Valieva and disqualification of all her results, including Olympics.
Russian skater Kamila Valieva’s doping hearing this week at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland is shrouded in secrecy. No outsiders are allowed. I decided to show up anyway and report on it. Here’s my first
@usatodaysports
column:
A brilliant move by U.S. Figure Skating and the U.S. silver-medal-winning 2022 Olympic team to ask for a seat in the Kamila Valieva hearing next month in Switzerland. If CAS denies the request, it looks terrible and secretive, like it’s hiding something.
Ohio State’s Urban Meyer and Maryland’s D.J. Durkin have failed not just as coaches, but also as human beings. It’s time for both of them to lose their jobs. My
@usatodaysports
column:
Schools that still insist on calling their teams the “Lady ____” include Tennessee, Baylor, Penn State...who else? This is the perfect day to call them out. Enough is enough. It’s sexist, it’s ridiculous and it’s entirely unnecessary. This goes for you too, high schools!
Breaking: I’m hearing that the long-awaited Court of Arbitration for Sport decision on the Kamila Valieva doping case is coming Monday — almost two years after the team figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Breaking: Skate Canada has decided to formally appeal the International Skating Union’s decision to give the 2022 Olympic team figure skating bronze medal to Russia, not Canada.
It was just awful: a crushing scene that millions watching around the world will not be able to shake, the manipulation and indeed the abuse of a child on display for all to see. My
@usatodaysports
column and our topic in a few minutes on
@cnn
:
As you watch the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony, know it is little more than a grand illusion to try to distract us from China’s awful human rights abuses. We journalists should mention this issue every day. I’ll do my best to do that.
Two big developments in Russia-gate this morning in Beijing: Kamila Valieva shows up for her practice right now, and IOC is not talking about who gets team skating medals, deferring to "legal case." Batten down the hatches, everyone. This is going to get very interesting.
Breaking news in the Kamila Valieva scandal: the U.S. Figure Skating team emailed a letter today to Matthieu Reeb, director general of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, requesting a seat to observe her closed hearing Sept. 26-29 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Story to come soon.
A woman getting paid more than the guys in her sport? That’s Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky, whose historic TYR swimwear sponsorship deal signals her intent to swim through 2024. My
@usatodaysports
column, including an interview with Ledecky:
Just got clarification from IOC’s Mark Adams on what’s happening in Valieva case: IOC hopes to win appeal against Russia letting her practice and compete. Then RUS would go to CAS to appeal that ruling and CAS would be forced to rule on the entire merits of the case.
The final medal tally: 58.4% of all U.S. medals were won by women, surpassing the previous best result, which was 55.8% at the 2012 London Olympics. U.S. women won a total of 66 medals, the most ever for American women at an Olympics.
Olympic medal ceremony update: all nine members of the 2022 U.S. figure skating team want to have their gold-medal ceremony at the 2024 Paris Olympics, USOPC says. Pending IOC approval, it would occur the second week of the Games Aug. 4-11 and include a celebration at USA House.
The USA Today report is true and therefore will not be corrected. Might I suggest actually reading my story? It says the VP’s office tried to arrange a conversation between Mike Pence and Adam Rippon after my original piece went online Jan. 17. Rippon declined the invitation.
The USA Today report is false & should be corrected. VP’s office did not try to arrange a meeting with Mr. Rippon at Olympics. As we’ve said before, the VP is supporting all the U.S. athletes in the Olympics and is hoping they all win medals. But this story is just not accurate.
Sports & politics: the historic election of so many women last night also is a Title IX success story. Given the chance to play sports & learn how to win and lose at a young age, girls are growing up empowered, with a confidence that their mothers didn’t have. Now, here they are.
Rapid tests for football players but not for the elderly in Ann Arbor or Columbus or Evanston, or for children & teachers in Bloomington or New Brunswick or Minneapolis, or for students paying for their education in East Lansing or Madison or College Park.
Trump’s Fast-foodgate: Why the rush to get Clemson to the WH? Is Trump that lonely? Desperate for photo op/diversion? Why did Clemson fall for it? Such bad optics w/800,000 fellow Americans w/out paychecks due to Trump’s shutdown. My
@usatoday
column:
Bill Belichick turns down Trump’s Medal of Freedom offer, highlighting the huge mistake Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player made last week by appearing with Trump less than 24 hours after he incited the insurrection at the Capitol.
The IOC forcefully answers back: no medal ceremony for the team competition and no medal ceremony if Kamila Valieva finishes in the top three of the women’s event. Fascinating and absolutely the right call. What a fiasco this is, all because of Russian doping.
Olympic figure skater, world silver medalist and three-time national champion Ashley Wagner: I was sexually assaulted at 17. Here's why I’m telling my story now.
@USATODAY
@AshWagner2010
Nathan Chen landed five quads last week. Alexandra Trusova just landed five quads tonight. Any gushing about the Russian's performance needs to mention this: she trains in the same camp with the same coach as Kamila Valieva. That coach is now under investigation.
Kamila Valieva with a major mistake on her triple axel — messy with a big step out — and a shaky performance overall. Tears at the end, tears as she left the ice. Still moves into first place. Of course she should not be in this competition.
I’ve covered Katie since she won gold in the 800 as a little water bug at the 2012 London Olympics. Have never seen a superstar in any sport cheer harder for her teammates. Doesn’t like talking about herself. Would rather praise her opponents, even after tough Olympic races.
Remarkable domination by Katie Ledecky: In winning the 800 free at the world championships, she passes Michael Phelps for the most individual world swimming titles in history with 16 while becoming the first swimmer ever to win six world titles in the same event.
Canadian ice dancer Nikolaj Sorensen, under investigation for alleged sexual assault, received muted applause Friday from the pro-Canadian crowd at the world championships — including at least one sign supporting survivors — and finished a distant 10th in the rhythm dance.
2/22/22: What a day! I watched the sun rise as my flight from Beijing landed in Tokyo, then set over Tokyo while taking off for LA, then rise again over the Pacific, then set again in Santa Monica. When midnight strikes in LA, I will have had 41 hours of 2/22/22.
U.S. figure skater and reigning national champion Mariah Bell: “I’m a huge advocate for clean sport and I’m 25 and I’m really proud of how I’ve led my career to this point.”
100 hours of silence from
@ISU_Figure
on why it put Russia ahead of Canada for the 2022 Olympic team skating bronze medal. From early Tuesday morning (5:22 am ET to be exact) to right now: no return emails, no explanation of their math, nothing.
ISU has been silent for 54 hours after apparently doing only half the math on the re-ordering of the 2022 Olympic team bronze medal. It subtracted 20 pts from ROC for the Valieva DQ, but failed to add a point each (SP and LP) to the remaining women. Just trying to help here. 😉
And how about Allison Janney thanking and praising Tonya at the Golden Globes? The same Golden Globes that focused on attacks/assaults on women. The same Tonya who helped plan — and recently admitted to knowing about — the attack on a woman named Nancy Kerrigan.
Six months ago today, Kamila Valieva’s positive drug test was reported, triggering postponement of the Olympic skating team medal ceremony. Next step was testing her B sample, a routine measure that takes just a few hours. Still no word from Russia on that. Absolutely ridiculous.
My breaking story, now updated with the information that officials have been told the Russian athlete who tested positive is a minor. There was only one minor in the team competition for Russia: women’s gold medal favorite Kamila Valieva.
Breaking: Positive drug test by Russian figure skater has forced a delay in the Olympic team medals ceremony. My news story:
@usatodaysports
@usatoday
The more you read and hear about what Urban Meyer did and didn’t do, the more unbelievable it is that Ohio State let him keep his job. What a disgrace. I’ll be talking about it on
@cnn
@NewDay
in an hour.
More than four years ago, Ashley Wagner had the courage to tell her story about being sexually assaulted in USA Today. Ever since, survivors who have come forward have told me that Wagner is their inspiration, that she showed them the way.
In light of today’s figure skating news- believe survivors.
No one wants this to be their story. People who come forward with experiences of SA gain nothing and relive their trauma. The story published today was horrifying but is another step forward in making skating safer.
Breaking: Another U.S. Olympic sport is now dealing with sexual misconduct allegations against a top coach. On Tuesday, U.S. Figure Skating suspended Richard Callaghan, coach of Tara Lipinski and Todd Eldredge. Story up soon.
Breaking news: In a major development, USA Swimming is calling on the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee to push for postponement of 2020 Tokyo Olympics. My exclusive:
@USATODAY
Kamila Valieva should not be here — but she is, and she finished first in the short program. I asked one of the best figure skating judges on earth to give his opinion on the outcome. The judges were wrong, he said. She should not have won the short program.
Kamila Valieva news in a nutshell: Russia panel allowed her to practice and compete — shocking!!! — and now IOC is going to CAS to overturn that and prohibit her from practicing and competing.