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≡ THE 5-RING CIRCUS ≡
● Olympic Esports Games ● SportBusiness reported that the IOC’s inaugural e-sports event will be delayed from the anticipated 2025 debut to 2026 or 2027.
The delay is to allow a new organizing concept to be firmed up, as the Olympic Movement structure of National Olympic Committee to assemble teams and International Federations to oversee the competitions does not apply.
Moreover, no announcements of the games to be played, qualifying process or venues have been made. It’s just going to take longer. The Olympic Esports Games is to be held in Saudi Arabia.
● Athletics ● A terrible, terrible accident at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs United High School meet on Sunday at the UCCS Mountain Lion Fieldhouse as a spectator was hit and killed by an errant weight throw that went into the stands.
The university statement explained:
“A member of the attending audience was killed when a hammer [sic] thrown by a participant cleared certified barriers and struck him. The Colorado Springs Fire Department responded, provided medical care and ultimately pronounced the audience member dead at the scene. Members of the UCCS Police Department and Colorado Springs Police Department were on scene.”
The victim was 57-year-old Wade Langston, who was said to be shielding his family from the implement at about 9:30 a.m. on Sunday. The Colorado United Track Club sent a message to its members:
“At the UCCS United track meet this morning, a spectator was hit in the head by a stray throwing weight. The man who was hit by this weight died on the scene. He was the father of one of our CO United team members who attends Vista Ridge HS. The remainder of the meet was canceled and all athletes were asked to go home.”
The high school weight is a 25-pound iron ball attached to a 16-inch cable, heavier than the standard men’s Olympic-event hammer, which is 16 pounds and uses a nearly-four-foot cable. When thrown, either can be extremely dangerous and deaths have taken place over the years in the throwing events, especially in the shot put or hammer or weight.
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Britain’s Daily Mail reported in detail on the allegations made by 2022 World men’s 100 m Champion Fred Kerley’s wife, Angelica, that he tried to strangle her in their home in May 2024. The two are estranged; they have three children together.
Kerley’s attorney called the allegations “imaginative claims”; he was accused of domestic violence by strangulation and strong-arm robbery and posted bond after a hearing in Miami on 4 January 2025. This case is separate from his 2 January arrest for battery on a law enforcement officer and disorderly conduct while trying to get to his car while a police activity was ongoing; he was released on his own recognizance in that matter.
Further hearings are upcoming.
● Basketball ● USA Basketball named its Athletes of the Year in 3×3, with guard Dylan Travis selected for the men and guard Hailey van Lith for the women. Travis was a member of the Paris Olympic 3×3 team that struggled with injuries and finished seventh. Van Lith was a bronze-medal winner on the women’s team that also had to deal with injury replacements; she was named to the Olympic All-Star Team for her play.
Former Connecticut star and now the President of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, Jennifer Rizzotti was honored as the USAB 3×3 Coach of the Year – for the third time – guiding the women’s 3×3 squad – despite injuries – to the Olympic bronze.
● Bobsled & Skeleton ● Bradley Nicol of the U.S. took the men’s Pan American Championships in Skeleton in Lake Placid, New York on Saturday, winning both runs to edge Canadian Ryan Kuehn, 1:50.39 to 1:51.51.
Brazil’s Nicole Rocha Silveira won both women’s runs to finish at 1:50.91, just ahead of Canadian Hallie Clarke (1:51.55). Kendell Wesenberg was the top American, in fourth, in 1:52.48.
● Boxing ● Another small step for World Boxing, with the formation of a continental confederation in the Americas – the Pan American Boxing Confederation – which will hold its inaugural meeting on 15 March 2025 in Panama City (PAN).
There are 17 national federations in the Americas which are currently affiliated with World Boxing, which is trying to become recognized by the International Olympic Committee and preserve boxing place on the Olympic program for Los Angeles in 2028.
● Speed Skating ● The strong U.S. performance at the ISU World Cup no. 3 in Calgary was even more spectacular than it looked:
● Jordan Stolz’s wins in the 500-1,000-1,500 m men’s races not only gave him 11 wins in 11 individual races this season, but ran his World Cup win streak to 20 in a row.
● The men’s Team Sprint winners – Austin Kleba, Cooper McLeod and Zach Stoppelmoor set a world record at 1:16.98, taking 0.19 off the record set by Canada in 2024.
● While Italy’s Davide Ghiotto was setting a world record in the men’s 10,000 m, Casey Dawson grabbed the American Record as well, finishing seventh in 12:45.43. That was near 10 seconds better than Chad Hedrick’s 12:55.11 from 2005!
Emerging women’s distance star Greta Myers – still just 20 – got not only her first win of the season in the women’s Mass Start, but her first career individual World Cup medal as well.
● Swimming ● Brrrrr! SwimSwam.com reported on a four-gold medal performance by U.S. Olympian Keaton Jones at the 2025 Ice Swimming World Championships, held in Molveno (ITA) in a 50 m pool … with 35 F temperatures (no wetsuits)! Ouch!
He became the first American to ever win gold at the Ice Swim Worlds in 2023, and racked up a lot more in the 13-19 January event, taking the 50-100 m Freestyles and the 50-100 m Backstroke events. He also won a silver in the 50 m Fly and set the Ice Swimming world record in the 100 m Butterfly, but did not swim the final. He was fifth in the Paris Olympic men’s 200 m Back last summer.
With sister Ezmee Jones, Lisa Yamamoto and Stephan Rouch, he won a fifth gold in the Mixed 4×250 m Free relay as well.
Why did he go? Per his Instagram post: “This community, these athletes, their stories of perseverance, spirit and sheer will, the pervasive desire to challenge oneself and to go against the grain of simply existing and instead live wild and embrace the extraordinary.”
Yes, of course, the International Ice Swimming Association – not a part of World Aquatics – wants its events in the Olympic Winter Games.
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