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≡ THE 5-RING CIRCUS ≡
● Basketball ● Jimmer Fredette, a star at BYU who played with five NBA teams, in Greece and China and won a FIBA 3×3 World Cup silver medal, announced his retirement from basketball on Wednesday.
Now 36, Fredette was a Paris Olympian, but suffered a hip injury in the U.S. team’s second game and was unable to play in the remaining five games. His squad had made the final of the 2023 FIBA 3×3 World Cup and was considered a medal favorite, but lost its outside shooting game with the absence of Fredette.
He wrote on Instagram: “I owe a lot of who I am today to this game and it’s not easy to say goodbye as a player. But the time has come.”
● Cycling ● Slovenian star Tadej Pogacar climbed back up to the top of the podium, winning Wednesday’s 89th edition of La Fleche Wallonne – “The Flemish Arrow” – race from Ciney to Huy in Belgium over 205.1 km in 4:50:15.
He attacked in the final kilometer and finally got away from Kevin Vauquelin (FRA: +0:10) and two-time Olympic Mountain Bike champion Tom Pidcock (GBR: +0:12), with France’s Lenny Martinez in fourth (+0:13).
After winning the seven-stage UAE Tour in February, Pogacar has been all over the spring Classics circuit, now winning his third race in six tries – Strade Bianche, Ronde van Vlaanderen and now La Fleche Wallonne. He was second twice and third once in his other races and will race in the final springtime “Monument” race, Liege-Bastogne-Liege on Sunday.
In the women’s race, at 140.7 km, four riders ended up racing for the line with 22-year-old Puck Pieterse, the 2024 UCI World Mountain Bike gold medalist, getting her first Women’s World Tour one-day race win. She crossed in 3:53:25, two seconds up on countrywoman Demi Vollering, the 2023 winner (+0:02), followed by 2024 bronze winner Elisa Longo Borghini (ITA: +0:06) and defending champ Kasia Niewiadoma (POL: +0:06).
Longo Borghini won her fifth medal in this race, held for the 28th time in 2025.
● Figure Skating ● If you’re organizing a future major skating event, better make space for a “calm room.”
International Skating Union chief Jae Youl Kim (KOR) picked up the idea from the Paris 2024 Olympic Village “mind zone” area, offering a respite from the hustle and bustle of the Games with a quiet space and activities.
In Boston for the 2025 World Championships, “125 skaters from 12 countries stepped into the ISU Calm Zone. It was a thoughtfully curated environment combining mindfulness tools, opportunities for creative expression, and moments of playful relaxation.”
As was the case with USA Gymnastics at its nationals, the on-site therapy dogs quickly became the stars of the project, and “skaters expressed a strong desire to see therapy dogs at every competition in the future.”
Activities which drew the most attention were messages of comfort shared among athletes, coloring and drawing programs, knitting and community projects, and, of course, Legos.
● Football ● Fascinating statistics on the impact of the Video Assistant Referee program from Roberto Rossetti (ITA), the UEFA Managing Director for Refereeing, ahead of the confederation’s first VAR Symposium, which opened Wednesday in London (ENG):
● “Referees make an average of 200 decisions in every game, one every 20-25 seconds. Without the use of VAR, 97.49% of decisions are correct. Using technology increases accuracy in decision-making to 99.60%.”
● “Without VAR, a game-changing mistake would occur every 2.4 matches. With VAR, that is reduced to every 16 matches.”
UEFA debuted VAR systems for the elimination rounds of the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League season; in 2024-25, 1,163 matches in UEFA competitions will use the technology.
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Andrew Giuliani, a first-term Special Assistant to U.S. President Donald Trump and the son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 39, has been tabbed to be the Executive Director of the White House Task Force on the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Trump is the Task Force Chair, with Vice President J.D. Vance as Vice Chair; the Task Force will be placed as part of the Department of Homeland Security.
● Swimming ● Another key hire for USA Swimming’s national team staff announced Wednesday and working with new National Team Director Greg Meehan:
“USA Swimming has announced Yuri Suguiyama as the organization’s new Senior Director and Coach of the National Team. In this key leadership role, Suguiyama will support all facets of the National Team program, guide performance strategies, and support the country’s top athletes and coaches through the Olympic quad.
“Suguiyama will assist in all aspects of USA Swimming’s National Team Division, including but not limited to strategic planning, international competitions, domestic racing schedules, athlete and coach services, and long-term programming development.”
He comes to the post from the University of Wisconsin, where he was head coach for seven seasons, and previously at Cal as associate head coach from 2012-18.
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