Shalane Flanagan ramped up her mileage like never before ahead of the 2017 New York City Marathon. Her desire to put some kind of special—though undefined—finishing touch on her career, one of the most decorated in American women’s running, has called for a new approach to her preparation.
“I’m at the point that I’m not saving myself like I have 10 more years in the sport,” Flanagan, 36, said on Wednesday, during a phone interview with Runner’s World. “I’m completely just throwing myself all into whatever I decide to do.”
… Even among all those masters, however, Robson took particular delight in his jack-of-all-trades. “Luis Enrique,” he once said, “can play right side at the back, left side at the back, right midfield, left midfield, central midfield. He can play up front, if you like. He can play anywhere. He’s fantastic.”
In Robson’s eyes, Enrique was six players in one, and it gave him particular pleasure to point out the circumstances of his arrival. “I got him for free,” Robson would say, leaving a beat for the payoff, “from Real Madrid.”
Few teams ever had a player of Enrique’s versatility, of course. Fewer still had a player who performed so many roles with such poise: Ricardo Gallego, a teammate of Enrique’s at Real Madrid, said he was “an example, because no matter where he plays, he is at his best.”
… One reason the Seahawks were particularly attracted to Brown is that he played his first six seasons in Houston in what is essentially the same blocking scheme (Houston’s OL coach in 2008-09 was a mentor of Seattle offensive line coach Tom Cable).
“The transition we can already see,” Carroll said. “It is going to be almost an immediate transition for him. He is a really smart player. He is mature and savvy and all that. You put that all together and he is going to be able to play right away and I think he is going to play effectively.”
… “We’re doing everything and support him,” Hamburg SV coach Markus Gisdol said after the loss in Berlin. “We can’t do more than we’re doing right now. Bobby needs to pull himself out of this. He’s making a full effort, but somehow it’s not coming together for him.
“He’s gone into a downward spiral that he has to work himself out of. He has the potential to be a good striker. He’s making a full effort, but somehow it’s not coming together for him.”
… He saw the two T&T goals, the first courtesy of a botched clearance by American central defender Omar Gonzalez that went into his own net and the second a long-distance laser from Soca Warriors right back Alvin Jones. And McKennie watched a tally early in the second half from his friend Christian Pulisic, which gave the red, white and blue a chance.
But McKennie shut off the game in the 85th minute. For one, he’s not the type to sit around for entire games, saying he’s never seen a World Cup final or Super Bowl all the way through. He’d rather be moving, be playing, be competing. For another, it was late—going on 3 a.m. in Germany—and he had training in the morning with Schalke, the Bundesliga team where he’s become a starter and an emerging star since signing in August, 2016. But mostly, McKennie shut off the game because he was mad.
The US men’s national team lost to Trinidad & Tobago in a decisive match that led to our ultimate failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Since then, there seems to be a lot of finger-pointing at the federation, the pay-to-play youth system and the coaches/players of the US team (to name a few). While we can and should debate these topics, the fact of the matter is this: We don’t have enough young players who eat, sleep, and breathe the sport of soccer.
Generations of players forged a path up the mountain of international relevance for you to follow but they all failed to reach the summit. Throughout my youth, collegiate, and pro soccer career I’ve become interested in understanding and pinpointing the reason why the United States can’t seem to break through on the international stage. If we’re serious about winning on the big stage and elevating our soccer stature as a nation, things need to be addressed head-on. The message to you is clear: For the US to be consistently recognized as an elite soccer nation you need to be smarter, savvier, more passionate footballers than those who’ve come before you.
… As director of research at a public policy center that studies adolescent risk-taking, I study teenage brains and teenage behavior. Recently, my colleagues and I reviewed years of scientific literature about adolescent brain development and risky behavior.
We found that much of the risk behavior attributed to adolescents is not the result of an out-of-control brain. As it turns out, the evidence supports an alternative interpretation: Risky behavior is a normal part of development and reflects a biologically driven need for exploration – a process aimed at acquiring experience and preparing teens for the complex decisions they will need to make as adults.
… A collaboration between scientists at the Air Force Research Laboratory and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering has resulted in a new method for digital design and printing of stretchable, flexible electronics. The process, called Hybrid 3-D printing, uses additive manufacturing to integrate soft, conductive inks with a material substrate to create stretchable, wearable electronic devices.
“This is the first time a 3-D printer has been shown, in a single process, to print stretchable sensors with integrated microelectronic components,” said Dr. Dan Berrigan, a research scientist at the AFRL Materials and Manufacturing Directorate. “Starting from nothing, the printer builds an entire stretchable circuit that blends the mechanical durability of printed components with the robust performance of off-the-shelf electronics.”
A willingness to do what it takes, to practice hard, and play harder, characterizes many that play collegiate sports. For a new generation, one that has risen to the college ranks by finding a sport and sticking to it, thousands of hours have been sacrificed for the chance to play in college. In many ways, especially for those sports without a professional option, these athletes reach the pinnacle of competition.
But athletes at top Division I colleges could be on track for chronic injury problems later in life. The baseball player that pitches through elbow pain, believing that Tommy John surgery will leave him better than before; the running back that continues playing on a badly sprained ankle; the midfielder that hurries back from an ACL injury, putting herself at risk for another shredded ligament.
“You get a physical on the way in,” says Paul Weinacht, a former offensive lineman at Stanford University, “But there isn’t a physical on the way out. No one asks about your injuries when you leave.”
This was the way Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow envisioned it working out. On a personal level, that’s what this American League championship represents.
The Process — that is, Luhnow’s process — has worked. Spin rates matter. So do exit velocities and bat speed and assorted other deep dives into data that produce defensive alignments, player evaluations, bullpen matchups, etc.
When Luhnow arrived in 2011, he was convinced there might be a better way of doing things. Rather, there might be other ways to complement the traditional baseball notion of how games are won.
Doc Rivers eyed the schedule, carefully hunting land mines, an annual August tradition for all NBA head coaches. In years past, Rivers, the Clippers’ skipper, could always find a handful of games that he knew his squad would likely surrender not because of the opposition but because of the circumstances entering that game itself.
Such circumstances might include a game falling during a lengthy road trip, or at the tail end of a brutal back-to-back set, or it required travel across time zones, or it came against a team that had been off for a few days — or maybe it was all of the above, a cocktail of misfortune.
In a league that adopted an 82-games-in-169-days approach, there was little that worn-down teams could do in these situations, especially against well-rested opposition — and especially during the second half of the season.
“It’s a significant advantage,” Rivers tells ESPN. “And going into those, you know that.”
… Conte would point to the summer. He has regularly used the word “emergency” to describe his team’s season, before listing the injuries which have disrupted progress, but his real gripe remains recruitment. The toils are the manager being proved right. This squad are not deep enough, or resilient enough, to compete on four fronts with the same intensity as last season. They lack cover of the calibre the coaching staff hoped in both wing-back positions, up front and even, perhaps, at centre-half. The club will do their best to address those concerns in January but, in Conte’s mind, he does not have the scope to chop and change like for like as much as he had anticipated. Even at Juventus he was criticised in some quarters for a reluctance to rotate his squad effectively and for an over-reliance on a core group. Here, once again, key members of his team are simply being flogged. César Azpilicueta has played every minute of the Premier League title defence and all but 15 in the Champions League. Marcos Alonso has featured in every league game. The 3-0 defeat at the Stadio Olimpico was Cesc Fàbregas’s 16th match of campaign. “The likes of Cesc and Tiémoué Bakayoko are having to play a lot of games and that impacts on their legs,” Thibaut Courtois said. “It’s harder for them to keep up the pressure, especially when we find ourselves up against three midfielders.” Energy levels have clearly dipped.