When I called Guye Adola a few hours after he ran the fastest debut marathon in history in Berlin on Sunday, I didn’t really expect him to pick up, but he did. “Inde?” I said, an Amharic phrase of surprise and indignation. “You ran and three?”
Ethiopians don’t bother with the hours when they list marathon times. The “two hours” is assumed. You’re an “and three” or an “and ten” runner. It was a few months before I realized that when people were talking about me, they were saying I was an “and nine” runner, generously removing 10 minutes from my marathon time to save face in fast company. On the phone, Guye burst out laughing, and I could hear people celebrating in the background.
The first baseman talks about why hamstring workouts are so key for baseball players, eating right (even though he loves Big Macs), his partnership with MET-Rx, and LA’s playoff chances.
For one morning, the rain did what opponents of the United States men’s national team have been unable to do: It penned in Christian Pulisic, denying him the space on the wings where he causes so much trouble for defenders.
The problem for Trinidad and Tobago is that the rainwater moat that encircled the playing surface at Ato Boldon Stadium on Monday, creeping over the sidelines and marooning the corner flags, will have to be gone by Tuesday night, when the hosts will face a United States team looking to clinch a place in next summer’s World Cup in Russia.
When the water recedes, Trinidad and Tobago will have to stop Pulisic a different way, and that could mean resorting to the tried-and-true tactics recent opponents have used to slow him down. They will kick him. They will shove him. They will knock him down.
“Sometimes,” Pulisic said earlier this year, “it’s not always about soccer in these games.”
… He keeps a strict daily schedule: wake up at 6 a.m., work out at 7, turkey bacon and oatmeal with berries for breakfast at 8. Lunch is a chicken, rice and lettuce bowl from Chipotle. Before bed, Butler spends 10 minutes writing in a leather-bound journal given to him by his coach at Marquette, Buzz Williams. One entry may be trivial, about a table he spotted at Target that he might buy for his apartment in San Diego. Another is sentimental, about a mom-and-pop restaurant that served him dinner even though the kitchen was closed. (Butler invited the chef to sit with him and drink a beer.) He passes time playing touch football—although he won’t take the field unless he’s wearing a regulation NFL jersey with cleats—and dominoes, the game that taught him to count. He and his crew can flip tiles for five straight hours, trash-talking in a language only they understand. Put that Dak on him, a reference to the Cowboys quarterback, means somebody turned a 4. Trees fell on him is a 15 and must be followed by the refrain, On his neck.
For years Butler refused to work out alongside any pro not on his own roster, once recusing himself from a regularly scheduled session with D.J. Augustin after the point guard bolted the Bulls for the Pistons. He has relaxed his policy a bit, but his primary training partner is Mike Smith, who met Butler as a senior at Fenwick High School in Chicago during a Jordan Brand event. “I want to learn,” said Smith, whose high fade reminded Butler of his own distinctive hairstyle. Smith, now a close-cropped sophomore guard at Columbia, lives with Butler in the offseason and is often behind the wheel of the minivan. “You own a Rolls-Royce and an Escalade!” Smith gripes. “Why do we always have to take this big-ass soccer mom car and listen to Garth Brooks?”
… It may sound like a half-sour idea, but it’s actually pretty kosher.
“In any type of activity, especially when you’re sweating, you’re losing sodium,” says Brian Dessart, CSCS. “When you lose sodium, the body is prone to cramping, whether its overall cramping or in certain areas. A lot of guys are taking in pickle juice because it has a very high sodium content. So taking the pickle juice and replacing the electrolytes they’re losing from sweat.”
Dessart says he’s seen mostly endurance athletes using the briny liquid, sometimes as a preventative measure to ward off the cramping, though the science is out as to if it actually works.
QB Aaron Rodgers spoke to the media following the Packers’ 35-31 victory over the Dallas Cowboys about the Packers’ final touchdown drive, Aaron Jones’ production and the Packers’ team identity.
… I’m what you might call a full-on hockey nerd. I can watch hockey all day. Like, when we’re headed to the airport after a game, I’ll pull out my phone right on the bus and just start streaming the late games. I’m always fascinated by why guys are playing a certain way, or taking chances in certain moments, or adding little tricks to their game. You watch any hockey game closely enough, and there’s going to be something you can pick up.
I see a guy like Sid winning two Stanley Cups in a row, and he’s still loving everything about the game, still working on new things. That’s inspiring to me. I wake up every day and try to eat, breathe, and sleep hockey. And I figure — why not add “write hockey” to that list?
This is my attempt at taking you a little deeper inside the game that I love. Honestly, I probably could have made this 20 players long — but here are the five toughest guys I’ve ever faced.
A new documentary about anxiety argues that everyone to some extent suffers from stress, nerves and social fear. And, to make their point, the filmmakers have enlisted as Exhibit A the most decorated Olympian in history.
Michael Phelps appears in “Angst” to share his story of being bullied and depressed, leading to severe anxiety. The swimmer, winner of 28 Olympic medals, would look in the mirror and not like what he saw.
As the Mets consider methods to keep their players on the field and off the disabled list next season, they remain committed to their senior advisor for strength and conditioning, Mike Barwis.
“Mike is not going anywhere,” general manager Sandy Alderson told The Post on Wednesday before the Mets faced the Cubs at Wrigley Field. “Mike is one of our most important staff and resources.”
In a season in which the Mets have been decimated by injuries, losing star players for extended periods, Barwis has become a target among fans, especially after a video was produced before the season that showed Yoenis Cespedes performing 900-pound bear squats with his legs at Barwis’ facility.
Pete Martin is a traveller, author, journalist and coach. This is the first in a series of articles adapted and extracted from his latest book “Fantafrica”. Soul searching for his true calling, the one activity to give himself up to that will replace ‘work’, he is invited to a volunteering project – developing a football academy in Ghana. His initial wonderment in providing housing, schooling and football training to street children is soon lost in confusion as he observes the levels of poverty and the alien culture of the African continent.
… We all suffer from poor or disrupted sleep from time to time, but it is chronic poor sleep that is the problem. What causes it? There are four major causes of poor sleep.
The great thing about running is that just about anyone can do it. No special equipment or specialized training is needed. You just go out your front door and run. While there aren’t any special pieces of equipment or previous training you’ll need, there are a few things you can do to build your proper foundation. Once you perfect your form, runs are much more enjoyable, efficient and goal-oriented.
Posture
Proper running posture does not come naturally to many people. It is something you may have to focus on in the beginning. My running coach has pounded into my head, “Hips forward, shoulders back. Arms are loose, now run relaxed.” These tips allow for proper breathing, the most efficient use of your muscles, and the reduction of possible pain and injury.
WHO DOES THE IRFU’s best-qualified NFL expert think would be best suited to transition from rugby to American football? The answer might surprise you…
With apologies for sounding like clickbait, frankly, Nick Winkelman’s answer did surprise us, because there was no Sean O’Brien, hulking centre or freakishly explosive wing on his verbal shortlist. Just a young man with an exemplary economy of movement.
“When I observe someone like Joey Carbery and the way he moves in space — now, he might need to be a bit bigger in terms of muscle size — but I would think of putting him in a defensive back position, the way he moves in space I think he would do very well for himself.
The main purpose of this study was to identify possible risk factors for injury in professional basketball using game tracking data. An observational prospective cohort study involving a professional basketball team of the National Basketball Association (NBA) of USA was conducted during three consecutive seasons. Twenty-six professional basketball players took part in this study. The team had a mean of 87.7 ± 2.9 games played per season. A total of 32 injuries were recorded, accounting for 301 total missed games with a mean of 8.9 ± 3.1 per player and season. Tracking data included the following variables: minutes played, physiological load, physiological intensity, mechanical load, mechanical intensity, distance covered, walking maximal speed, running maximal speed, sprinting maximal speed, maximal speed, offensive average speed, defensive average speed, level one acceleration, level two acceleration, level three acceleration, level four acceleration, level one deceleration, level two deceleration, level three deceleration, level four deceleration, player efficiency rating and usage percentage. The influence of demographic characteristics, tracking data and performance factors on the risk of injury was investigated using a multivariate analysis with their incidence rate ratios (IRRs). Athletes with less than 16 accelerations per game (IRR, 6.01; 95% CI, 1.37-20.63) and those running less than 2 miles per game (lower workload) (IRR, 2.94; 95% CI, 1.24-6.94) had a higher risk of injury during games (p = 0.01 in both cases). Therefore, unloaded players have a greater risk of injury. Adequate management of training loads might be a relevant factor to reduce the likelihood of injury according to individual profiles.
In 2015, a chart about Ohio State University head football coach Urban Meyer’s recruiting preferences went viral on Twitter. It showed that the coach overwhelmingly recruited multi-sport athletes—and he’s not alone. Among others, Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney is also open about how he seeks out athletes who split their time.
Last month, USA Baseball, the national governing body for amateur baseball, published an article on its website titled “Saving the Multi-Sport Athlete from Extinction.” In it, Darren Fenster, a former minor league player and current manager of a Boston Red Sox affiliate, encourages student-athletes to wait as long as possible to specialize in a sport.
Journal of Sports Medicine & Physical Fitness from
BACKGROUND:
Insufficient sleep is associated with increased risk of several health concerns. Although physical activity is generally considered to improve sleep, the influence of different levels of exercise frequency, duration and intensity respectively, has not been sufficiently examined to allow specific recommendations to the general population. Therefore, our aim was to evaluate the association between different levels of the three cardinal characteristics of exercise and sleep disturbance. METHODS:
Data were collected through a Norwegian comprehensive self-report survey. A total of 3763 respondents (46 % males, 54 % females) with an average age of 47.9 years (range 15-93) completed the questionnaire, whereof 13.7 % were categorised as poor sleepers. The exercise characteristics and sleep disturbance were measured on a 6 to 8 and a 4-item Likert scale, respectively. RESULTS:
Respondents reporting intermediate levels of exercise frequency, duration and intensity, respectively, had a significantly lower occurrence of sleep disturbance compared to respondents with a sedentary lifestyle. No statistical difference in sleep disturbance was observed between respondents performing exercise corresponding to the lowest and highest levels of the three exercise characteristics and those who were sedentary. CONCLUSIONS:
The lack of positive association between the lowest and highest levels of the cardinal exercise characteristic and reduction in sleep disturbance revealed in the present study support a recommendation of intermediate levels of exercise frequency, duration and intensity for preventing sleep disturbance in the general population.
We aim to determine the influence of sports floorings and sports shoes on impact mechanics and performance during standardised jump tasks. Twenty-one male volunteers performed ankle jumps (four consecutive maximal bounds with very dynamic ankle movements) and multi-jumps (two consecutive maximal counter-movement jumps) on force plates using minimalist and cushioned shoes under 5 sports flooring (SF) conditions. The shock absorption properties of the SF, defined as the proportion of peak impact force absorbed by the tested flooring when compared with a concrete hard surface, were: SF0 = 0% (no flooring), SF1 = 19%, SF2 = 26%, SF3 = 37% and SF4 = 45%. Shoe and flooring effects were compared using 2×5 repeated-measures ANOVA with post-hoc Bonferroni-corrected comparisons. A significant interaction between SF and shoe conditions was found for VILR only (p = 0.003). In minimalist shoes, SF influenced Vertical Instantaneous Loading Rate (VILR) during ankle jumps (p = 0.006) and multi-jumps (p<0.001), in accordance with shock absorption properties. However, in cushioned shoes, SF influenced VILR during ankle jumps only (p<0.001). Contact Time was the only additional variable affected by SF, but only during multi-jumps in minimalist shoes (p = 0.037). Cushioned shoes induced lower VILR (p<0.001) and lower Contact Time (p≤0.002) during ankle jumps and multi-jumps compared to minimalist shoes. During ankle jumps, cushioned shoes induced greater Peak Vertical Ground Reaction Force (PVGRF, p = 0.002), greater Vertical Average Loading Rate (p<0.001), and lower eccentric (p = 0.008) and concentric (p = 0.004) work. During multi-jumps, PVGRF was lower (p<0.001) and jump height was higher (p<0.001) in cushioned compared to minimalist shoes. In conclusion, cushioning influenced impact forces during standardised jump tasks, whether it was provided by the shoes or the sports flooring. VILR is the variable that was the most affected.
… The Daily Telegraph report Klopp has decided on another shake up of the medical department after just two years at Anfield.
Wales’ fitness and conditioning coach Ryland Morgans, who was part of the Brendan Rodgers regime, was another high-profile exit shortly after Klopp’s appointment.
But the timing of Renshaw’s departure comes as something of a surprise, recently he gave an interview with a Liverpool fan site and there was no hint he was about to leave.
In the hours leading up to just about every game, baseball teams gather on the field to stretch. And then stretch some more. It is an utterly monotonous activity in what eventually becomes a marathon of a season.
The Chicago Cubs, however, are a team that prides itself on maintaining a relatively free-spirited work environment, and they have found a way to tinker with this routine. They have done so by turning pregame stretching into something that resembles group therapy.
Led by Tim Buss, the Cubs’ out-of-the-box strength and conditioning coach, the team’s position players converge on the field about 15 minutes before batting practice. At that point, a player or someone else who works for the club is chosen to stand in the middle of the circle. And then, one by one, everyone says something nice about the person.
… Max and Chloe were left baffled when they shaved almost 15 seconds off their per-kilometre speed at a running session on Monday.
So when AIS skills aquisition coach Daniel Greenwood strapped a duct tape on the front and back of Max’s leg, they didn’t second-guess the method.
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“My right leg overstrides more than my left, so with the tape it puts pressure that if I overstride, it pulls the hairs on my leg,” Max said.
KQED Future of You, Associated Press, Linda A. Johnson from
Abbott’s new FreeStyle Libre Flash Glucose Monitoring System, approved Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration, uses a small sensor attached to the upper arm. Patients wave a reader device over it to see the current blood sugar level and changes over the past eight hours.
Running-related injuries are common and are associated with a high rate of reoccurrence. Errors in applied training loads are often cited as a primary cause of running-related injuries. Clinicians and runners are beginning to utilize wearable technologies to quantify training loads with the hope of reducing the incidence of running-related injuries. Wearable devices can objectively assess training loads and biomechanics in runners, yet guidelines for their use by clinicians and runners are not currently available. This article outlines several applications for the use of wearable devices in the prevention and rehabilitation of running-related injuries. Applications for monitoring of training loads, running biomechanics, running epidemiology, return to running programs and gait retraining are discussed. Best-practices for choosing and use of wearables are described to provide guidelines for clinicians and runners. Finally, future applications are outlined for this rapidly developing field.
Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have built a flexible sensor that can be rolled up and swallowed. Upon ingestion, the sensor adheres to the stomach wall or intestinal lining, where it can measure the rhythmic contractions of the digestive tract. Such sensors could help doctors to diagnose gastrointestinal disorders that slow down the passage of food through the digestive tract. They could also be used to detect food pressing on the stomach, helping doctors to monitor food intake by patients being treated for obesity. The flexible devices are based on piezoelectric materials, which generate a current and voltage when they are mechanically deformed. They also incorporate polymers with elasticity similar to that of human skin, so that they can conform to the skin and stretch when the skin stretches.
The clothing manufacturer Venex Life-Science tracks the strategy to enhance recovery process through implementing platinum harmonized technology (PHT) into their Venex® Regeneration Wear. The proposed mechanisms of the regeneration wear are an increase of parasympathetic activity and an increase of the temperature due far-infrared radiation. The purpose of this study was to investigate potential effects of Venex regeneration wear on the recovery of neuromuscular, systemic and subjective parameters following exercise. In a randomized, single-blinded cross-over design, 13 strength-trained male participants performed two exercise sessions in one day. After the first exercise session and for 3 nights following the exercise day participants wore the Venex regeneration wear or a placebo product. Measures of isometric maximum voluntary contraction (MVC), voluntary activation (VA) and potentiated twitch torque (PTT) of the knee extensors, as well as maximum jump height during the Counter-Movement and Drop Jump, creatinkinase (CK) and subjective parameters (perceived pain, recovery condition and sleep quality) were obtained before and after each exercise session and 24, 48, and 72 hours after the first exercise session. MVC, PTT, CK and jump parameters changed over time during the exercise day as well as on the following days, however, there were no significant differences between treatments. Subjective parameters showed strong effect sizes (i. e. Cohen’s d > 0.6) in favor for Venex but no significant differences between treatments. Based on these findings, it is concluded that wearing a platinum harmonized textile following exercise did not improve neuromuscular and systemic recovery in a trained male population to a statistical noticeable extent. However, the findings for the subjective parameters suggest some potential for enhanced recovery that requires further research.
There has been speculation that rest during the regular season for players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) improves player performance in the postseason. Purpose:
To determine whether there is a correlation between the amount of regular-season rest among NBA players and playoff performance and injury risk in the same season. Study Design:
Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods:
The Basketball Reference and Pro Sports Transactions archives were searched from the 2005 to 2015 seasons. Data were collected on players who missed fewer than 5 regular-season games because of rest (group A) and 5 to 9 regular-season games because of rest (group B) during each season. Inclusion criteria consisted of players who played a minimum of 20 minutes per game and made the playoffs that season. Players were excluded if they missed ≥10 games because of rest or suspension or missed ≥20 games in a season for any reason. Matched pairs were formed between the groups based on the following criteria: position, mean age at the start of the season within 2 years, regular-season minutes per game within 5 minutes, same playoff seeding, and player efficiency rating (PER) within 2 points. The following data from the playoffs were collected and compared between matched pairs at each position (point guard, shooting guard, forward/center): points per game, assists per game, PER, true shooting percentage, blocks, steals, and number of playoff games missed because of injury. Results:
A total of 811 players met the inclusion and exclusion criteria (group A: n = 744 players; group B: n = 67 players). Among all eligible players, 27 matched pairs were formed. Within these matched pairs, players in group B missed significantly more regular-season games because of rest than players in group A (6.0 games vs 1.3 games, respectively; P < .0001). There were no significant differences between the groups at any position in terms of points per game, assists per game, PER, true shooting percentage, blocks, steals, or number of playoff games missed because of injury.
Conclusion:
Rest during the NBA regular season does not improve playoff performance or affect the injury risk during the playoffs in the same season.
Female adolescent athletes may take more than twice as long to recover from concussions as their male counterparts, a small study suggests.
Researchers examined data on 110 male and 102 female athletes, ranging in age from 11 to 18 years, who sustained their first concussion while participating in sports.
You just polished off a bowl of mint chocolate chip, and suddenly you’re craving a drink. Sound familiar? Post-dessert thirst is a common reaction—but why is it that sweet treats make us feel so parched?
Dr. Caroline Apovian, a professor in the endocrinology, diabetes and nutrition department at the Boston University School of Medicine, says that the reason has to do with a spike in your blood sugar levels. “When you put sugar in your system, it first goes to your stomach, and then into your bloodstream,” she says.
Once the sugar particles reach your blood, water moves out of your cells and into your blood, to restore balance in your blood. As your cells lose water, they send signals to the brain indicating that they need more H2O. The result? You feel the urge to sip on something.
After collapsing and spending two weeks in a medically induced coma, celebrity bodybuilder Rich Piana died in August at the age of 46.
The exact cause of his death has yet to be determined, but that certainly hasn’t stopped people from speculating about potential causes. First, there were reports that an overdose might have been to blame. Now, there are rumors that Piana might have died from using insulin, the hormone that regulates your body’s blood sugar. People who inject insulin and who already produce the hormone naturally can see their blood glucose levels drop dangerously low—and if they don’t ingest additional sugar to bring their blood glucose back up, the consequences can be fatal.
For many of us, drinking coffee is such a ubiquitous activity we hardly notice we’re doing it. But Steven Topik reminds us that in various times and places, the coffee bean has represented a spiritual practice, a political controversy, and even a form of money.
The history of coffee starts in Ethiopia, where it grew wild. Topik writes that locals used it as a sacrament in communal ceremonies and to keep up energy and blunt hunger during hunting treks.
As the beans spread to other parts of Africa, some groups made the fresh coffee berries into drinks, while others roasted them in fat or butter, or simply chewed them up. They were light and valuable enough that the Haya people of Tanzania adopted coffee as currency, pricing livestock and other commodities in terms of coffee beans.
So, is it the effects on calcium and nerve function (neurotransmitter release), the effects on calcium and muscular contraction, the antioxidants properties, some other function? Supplementing Vitamin D and getting people more sun exposure are easy things to do…
“These findings reveal an important new relationship between parathyroid hormone and gait stability parameters and add to understanding of the role of 25-OHD in motor control of gait and dynamic balance in community-dwelling women across a wide age span.”
Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens revealed Sunday night he will continue a recent trend by declining to name a team captain this season.
Since Stevens took over the Celtics, they have only named one captain: Rajon Rondo. The team has not named a captain since trading Rondo in December of 2014.
“We won’t name a captain,” Stevens said Sunday night before an open practice at TD Garden. “We’ll have leaders. They’ll all come to the front. We all want all 15 guys to take ownership in being authentic leaders. As I’ve said before, I think the biggest thing is that sometimes when you name a captain or name a few captains, you can disempower others as much as you empower captains.”
A cynic might say there isn’t much point in the U.S. men’s national team flying to Russia next year, even if it qualifies. (It still has to beat Panama and Trinidad & Tobago this month to get there automatically.) But this weakness isn’t just an American problem. Almost the entire world outside little Western Europe has been relegated to also-ran status in soccer. Why?
I admit that I’d expected the rest of the world to eventually catch up. When Stefan Szymanski and I first published our book “Soccernomics” in 2009, we said that large countries like the U.S., Japan and China would eventually copy Western Europe’s best practices and outstrip the region. It hasn’t happened yet. In fact, Western Europe — with only about 400 million inhabitants, just 5 percent of the world’s total — has won an unprecedented three consecutive World Cups. Even more impressively, at those tournaments the region secured eight of the nine podium places (i.e. first, second and third). The rest of the world has only one team that can just about keep up: Lionel Messi’s Argentina. And next summer the Europeans will have a tournament in their own continent.
Western Europe excels at soccer for the same basic reason that it was, for centuries, the world’s richest region. Its secret is what the historian Norman Davies calls its “user-friendly climate.” Western Europe is mild and rainy. Because of that, the land is fertile. This allows hundreds of millions of people to live crammed together in a small area, and that geography has always helped them exchange ideas.
The U.S. Soccer Federation announced a three-year partnership on Thursday with Opta, a sports analytics company, to give the league access to detailed player data that could be used to enhance fan engagement, develop athlete performance and aid in scouting players.
The deal makes Opta, which already provides data analytics to the English Premiere League, U.S. Major League Soccer, United Soccer League, National Women’s Soccer League and North American Soccer League, the Federation’s Official Live Match Data Provider.
When I started my career in technology I thought the best thing ever was the ability to make things work, so I started learning multiple programming language and building things. I then realized people using my software were having problems, so my next guess was to learn graphic design. Better, but something was still off: even if it looked good and the features were there, users were still having problems. I then switched again, moving to user experience, service design and information architecture. This combination worked well, but the ability to build useful services was still limited by one thing: me. I couldn’t do everything, so I started learning business, management, and organization design. There I realized that great products don’t just come from great technology and great design, but how the people that work on it communicate and interact together as one. Great products are shaped by the organization structure first.
Among many rules of thumb that I find useful to structure teams and organizations, two keep coming back as foundational pieces for many other different models. They keep coming back because they seem counter-intuitive in one way or another.
The first is Conway’s Law:
“Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations”
… I often argue with people over whether companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple do research. My argument is that for the most part, they do not, because they are not interested in creating new knowledge. They do not make any specific public claims or inferences about the data they’ve gathered and so there isn’t really anything for them to defend. They are interested in taking whatever information they collected and channeling it into products. Yes, all of these companies occasionally publish a paper (I think Apple has a grand total of five), and I would say that those papers represent real research. But I would wager that those papers represent a small fraction of the work going on in those companies.
Founded to help a troubled group of young footballers in Borlange, the club has risen through the Swedish league system and now plays a crucial role in giving hope to millions
… The complaints filed last week read like a summary of college basketball (and football) in modern times, with agents and sneaker companies conspiring with coaches and players to manipulate the recruiting process. It’s unfair to competing programs that follow the rules, to be sure, but let’s not kid ourselves that anybody actually involved in the transactions is hurt. Players get paid, coaches get victories, and their schools get both revenue and wins.
Think about it: how is the University of Louisville defrauded when Brian Bowen—the star recruit at the heart of the scandal who’s now been suspended—agrees to play for Pitino (who previously hired hookers to lure recruits)? The school created a sports environment where the only goals are to win and make money; it has succeeded wildly in recent years. As has Auburn, where the only thing more prized than cha-ching and championships is beating Alabama.
It is a familiar tale. British athletes speaking out about bullying and a “toxic” culture of fear. Hard evidence of inappropriate behaviour from senior coaches and plummeting morale. UK Sport appearing to do little about it for years before belatedly acting. This is not British Cycling we are talking about, however, but British Bobsleigh.
Many British Olympic sports are rightly proud of their professionalism and successes. UK Sport, which celebrated its 21st birthday last month, also points to Britain’s giddy position in the medal table since the Atlanta Games in 1996 as a justification for its efforts and tough funding decisions. Yet increasingly the flaws in the system are beginning to show.
It cannot be right when athletes at the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association (BBSA) are warned they could lose their chance of competing at the Olympics if they dare to speak out publicly about issues such as bullying, sexism and racism, as the Guardian revealed in June.
Ashok Balakrishnan, the senior vice president for product and technology at Sportradar, explains how the data company’s acquisition of MOCAP Analytics, a Silicon Valley startup that specialises in AI-powered player-tracking technology, is all part of a plan to tell better stories through data.
… More important, though, were the changes at macro-level. As early as 1998, forward-thinking men at the German Football Association had begun to overhaul youth development, having come to realise that a lack of specialised, competent coaching was proving detrimental to the nation’s talents.
As a stop-gap measure, the FA set up a 121 regional centres in remote areas where otherwise overlooked youngsters could at least enjoy one weekly session under a highly-qualified coach and, perhaps, be spotted by a big club. Two years later, every Bundesliga club agreed to build youth academies.
At present there are 366 regional centres and 54 certified club academies, where kids are educated in close cooperation with local schools, which run at a cost of approximately €130 million per year.
The Pudding, Russell Goldenberg & Matt Daniels from
After the 2017 NBA finals, LeBron James said, “I don’t believe I’ve played for a superteam.” This comment raised some eyebrows, since the formation of the 2011 Miami Heat is often considered the definition of a modern-day superteam. But with the Big 3, The Decision, the 2017 Warriors, and the most recent off-season, does LeBron have an argument? What is a superteam, really? Let’s try to support or debunk LeBron’s belief by defining what a superteam is, with data.
… Odd late game decisions that don’t affect the outcome but change which bettors get paid are common in sports. To some people this proves that betting affects games, while other people laugh that nuts will build conspiracy theories on any unusual event. Academic economists have opinions. The 2005 best-seller “Freakonomics” alleged match fixing in Sumo wrestling and a classic 2006 paper by Justin Wolfers claimed that point-shaving was widespread in college basketball.
These and similar conclusions have been attacked and defended vigorously. It’s clear that betting affects game outcomes because the statistical distribution of results is not consistent with everyone ignoring the spread. What’s controversial among academics is whether the deviations can be explained by corrupt actions such as players shaving points for money or coaches trying to please lo
Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid’s five-year, $146.5 million maximum extension is essentially guaranteed but protects the franchise financially should Embiid suffer a contractually specific catastrophic injury, league sources told ESPN.
Embiid, 23, signed the rookie-scale max extension Tuesday, with the $146.5 million total for the deal based on the NBA’s new salary-cap projections for the 2018-19 season.
For the Sixers to curb the ultimate value of the extension, it would take the triggering of several severe circumstances detailed in a 35-page-plus contract. Embiid’s unique career trajectory — missing his first two NBA seasons with successive foot surgeries and playing only 31 games in the 2016-17 season — created a pathway for Philadelphia general manager Bryan Colangelo; Embiid’s agents at CAA Sports; and the National Basketball Players Association to work together on creating a complicated and creative contractual agreement.